Republican Whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), ranking member of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, and Rep. James Comer (R-KY), ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, are renewing their calls for their Democrat colleagues to investigate the origins of the Chinese coronavirus and “hold the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) accountable.”
In a June 3 letter to committee leaders, Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-SC) and Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), the Republican lawmakers called out the Democrat leaders for ignoring their May 24 request, in which they asked them to join House Republicans in their efforts to hold the CCP accountable for its role in “unleashing the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The Republicans pointed to the recent release of the thousands of Dr. Anthony Fauci emails, noting that many of his emails “debunk many Democrats’ claims from the past year that he and other Administration scientists were ‘muzzled’ by the Trump Administration.”
“More importantly, the emails contain new evidence regarding the origins of COVID-19, including the possibility it leaked from a U.S. taxpayer-funded laboratory,” they continued.
With that new information in mind, it is imperative, they continued, that Fauci “come before our Committees to provide information related to the origins of the novel coronavirus as well as the U.S. government’s role in funding research that may have contributed to the development of the novel coronavirus.”
“The American people have a right to know what our government knew about the origins of the pandemic and when it was known,” they wrote before formally renewing their request:
Therefore, we renew our request that you immediately convene hearings to examine the origins of COVID-19, the possibility that it leaked from a CCP-controlled laboratory, and any involvement of U.S. taxpayer funds. Additionally, we request that you demand unredacted versions of all of Dr. Fauci’s recently released emails. Your continued inaction while facing mounting evidence of the CCP’s malicious conduct is concerning. Thank you for your attention to this important inquiry.
The letter follows the release of thousands of Fauci emails, which show the way the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases chief spoke about key issues regarding the pandemic over the past year. In one email, for example, Fauci, who once supported the concept of double-masking, dismissed the effectiveness of drugstore masks against protecting against the virus.
“The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material,” he wrote.
Fauci has admitted that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded the Wuhan lab but continues to deny having a role in gain of function research. However, Fauci has failed to explain why he wrote in an email, “Urgent, we must discuss this gain of function research” despite his present-day insistence that such participation was nonexistent.