Two US senators have announced a bipartisan investigation of national security threats posed by high-risk biological research and technology in the United States and abroad.

Republican senator Rand Paul and Democrat Gary Peters said they planned to hold hearings about, and conduct government-wide oversight of, high-risk life science research, biodefense, synthetic biology, biosafety and biosecurity lapses, early warning capabilities for emerging outbreaks or possible attacks, and the potential origin of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The senators said: “This bipartisan oversight effort will assess and identify measures to mitigate longstanding and emerging risks and threats that may result in serious biological incidents – whether deliberate, accidental, or natural.

“The investigation will also seek to increase transparency and strengthen oversight of taxpayer-funded life sciences research, laboratories in the US and abroad, and detection of biological threats.”

Paul is a ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and Peters is the committee’s chairman.

This is a significant development with regards to investigations into the possible origin of SARS-CoV-2. It is Republican senators who have been driving efforts in Congress to find out the truth about the origin of SARS-CoV-2. The Democrats have, until now, taken a back seat.

No Democrat representatives attended the voluntary, transcribed interview of the president of the EcoHealth Alliance (EHA), Peter Daszak, conducted in November last year.

The interview was requested by five members of the US Congress who are investigating the origin of SARS-CoV-2. Daszak testified for nine and a half hours.

Daszak has been under the spotlight since early on in the Covid-19 pandemic. There were serious concerns about his presence in the World Health Organisation team that went to Wuhan in January/February 2021.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US has given the EHA millions of dollars in funding to conduct research in collaboration with scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Daszak led the Lancet Covid-19 Commission’s task force that was set up to investigate the origins of SARS-CoV-2, but, in June 2021, it was announced that he was recused from commission work on the origins of the pandemic.

In September 2021 an international group of ten scientists and health experts called on the board of the EHA to remove Daszak as the organisation’s president.

It has been said that the ‘Defusing the Threat of Bat-borne Coronaviruses’ (DEFUSE) grant proposal that the EHA submitted to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the US in March 2018 was a blueprint for SARS-CoV-2.

Rand Paul said of the new investigation: “It is well past time for the Senate to conduct a bipartisan inquiry into the origins of Covid-19, and, as part of this investigation, we finally will be holding committee hearings to do just that.

“In order to prevent a more catastrophic pandemic from occurring, we must understand the nature of US-funded biotechnology and hold accountable those who engage in risky gain-of-function research.”

Peters said: “Biotechnologies, such as CRISPR, are rapidly advancing, and our understanding of biological risks and threats is constantly evolving. While many of these advancements have the potential to greatly benefit Americans, we must also ensure we are addressing and minimising the serious risks they can also pose to our health and national security.

“This bipartisan oversight effort will allow us to take a comprehensive look at whether the federal government is taking the necessary steps to keep Americans safe from current and future biological threats.”

Paul said the investigation would be groundbreaking, “marking the first government-wide examination of taxpayer-funded, high-risk life science research”.

He added: “I’ve been banging on the doors of federal agencies for the past three years, relentlessly seeking information on Covid-19, but it’s been nothing short of a wild goose chase.

“To prevent repeating past mistakes, it’s crucial we fully comprehend the dangers of engaging in potentially hazardous bioresearch. This involves shining a spotlight on the gaping holes in oversight throughout the federal research processes and procedures.”

During a hearing yesterday (March 20) entitled ‘Reforming Federal Records Management for Greater Transparency and Accountability’, Paul said the US government had continuously obstructed his efforts to obtain crucial information regarding the origins of Covid-19.

Paul says that, over the past four years, he has sent dozens of requests to various agencies requesting critical records, many of which were not classified, only to be met with blanket refusals to disclose thousands of relevant documents and/or page after page of redacted documents.

“For four long years, dozens of agencies across our government have systematically obstructed my requests for information,” Paul said in his opening statement at the March 20 hearing.

“Even requests that have now come jointly with the chairman have been obstructed. They’ve refused to disclose thousands of relevant records in their possession.”

Paul has on numerous occasions gone head-to-head in Congressional hearings with the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Anthony Fauci.

Rand Paul (left) and Anthony Fauci.

Paul said on Fox News on January 8 this year: “The biggest lie from Anthony Fauci was that the United States government, and with his approval, did not fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan.

“We now have the Department of Energy, the FBI, and, actually, a group of scientists at the CIA, all agree that, in all likelihood, Covid-19 came from a lab in Wuhan that was funded by US taxpayer dollars.

“Anthony Fauci has continued to deny this and I believe that to be a lie …”

During a Congressional hearing in the US on May 11, 2021, Rand Paul questioned Fauci about US funding for gain-of-function research.

Fauci told Paul that the NIH “has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology”.

It’s known, however, that the NIH did fund the EHA to surveil and understand the risks of the transmission to humans of SARS-related coronaviruses. That funding was later withdrawn.

Fauci has said that the NIH cut off funding for the collaboration between the EHA, which is based in New York, and researchers in Wuhan after the then US president Donald Trump told it to.

There was a heated exchange between Paul and Fauci during a senate committee hearing on July 20, 2021, in which Paul asked Fauci if he wished to retract the statement he made on May 11 in which he said that the NIH had never funded gain-of-function research at the WIV.

Paul cited the 2017 paper entitled ‘Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus’ and pointed out that the NIH grant for the research was cited in the paper.

“This is high-risk research that creates new potential pandemic pathogens, potential pandemic pathogens that exist in the lab, not in nature,” Paul said.

Fauci continued to insist that the work referred to in the paper was not gain-of-function research. He said he had never lied before Congress and did not retract the statement he made on May 11. “This paper that you’re referring to was judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not being gain of function,” Fauci said, adding: “Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about.”

The then NIAID director said Paul was making accusations based on “no reality”, alleged that he was lying, and added: “I have never lied; certainly not before Congress. Case closed.”

During two days of closed-door transcribed interviews with members of Congress in January this year Fauci answered questions about his role during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The interviews, which lasted a total 14 hours, were conducted by members of the US House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

The committee’s chairman, Brad Wenstrup, said that Fauci’s testimony on the first day of questioning on January 8 “uncovered drastic and systemic failures in America’s public health systems”.

He said that, while leading the nation’s Covid-19 response and influencing public narratives, Fauci “simultaneously had no idea what was happening under his own jurisdiction at NIAID”.

Wenstrup said Fauci, who was formerly the chief medical adviser to the White House, said more than 100 times that he did not recall pertinent Covid-19 information or conversations.

Fauci “profusely defended” his previous Congressional testimony in which he stated that the NIH, which is the NIAID’s umbrella organisation, did not fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, Wenstrup said.

Emily Kopp from the investigative research group ‘U.S. Right to Know’ (USRTK) tweeted on March 20: “Bipartisan requests for records related to COVID’s origins have been obstructed across several government agencies.

“This is not political. Sen. Paul and Sen. Peters both requested records related to COVID’s origins 8 months ago and exclusively got redacted documents back.

“Congress unanimously asked for the declassification of intel related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology one year ago today. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has flouted that law. ODNI has also flouted USRTK’s FOIA request.”

On June 23, 2023, the ODNI belatedly released a document, entitled ‘Potential Links Between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Origin of the COVID-19 Pandemic’, that isn’t compliant with the requirements of the 2023 COVID-19 Origin Act.

The document released by the ODNI five days after the June 18 deadline is just ten pages long. The first page is the cover sheet, the second page is the table of contents, the third page is the ‘Executive Summary’ and the last three pages are definitions.

The 2023 COVID-19 Origin Act, which was signed into law by the US president Joe Biden on March 20, 2023, requires the Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, to declassify information relating to the origin of Covid-19.

The legislation specifically refers to the declassification of all information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of Covid-19, activities performed by the WIV “with or on behalf of the People’s Liberation Army”, coronavirus research or other related activities performed at the WIV prior to the outbreak of Covid-19, and all information about the researchers at the WIV who fell ill in autumn 2019.

Under the Act, the required information should have been provided within 90 days of the legislation’s enactment. There should only be “such redactions as the Director determines necessary to protect sources and methods”, the legislation states.

The US Senate voted unanimously to pass the bill on March 1, 2023, and, on March 10, the House of Representatives approved the bill with 419 votes in favour. Sixteen representatives didn’t vote.

The ODNI states in its report: “We continue to have no indication that the WIV’s pre-pandemic research holdings included SARSCoV-2 or a close progenitor, nor any direct evidence that a specific research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the COVID pandemic.”

The executive director of USRTK, Gary Ruskin, tweeted that the ODNI had not produced what was legally required. “Congress should instruct ODNI to obey the law, or if necessary, compel it to do so,” Ruskin said.

Rand Paul has described the ODNI’s ten-page document as “a paltry, unclassified summary appended by a classified annex”.

At the March 20 hearing he noted that USRTK had filed 97 Freedom of Information Act requests and 25 lawsuits in its effort to obtain information from the executive branch.

USRTK was one of the countless organisations fighting for the disclosure of records related to Covid-19, Paul said.

“Nearly all of the records concerning the origins of Covid have come from these groups obtaining court orders to force the executive branch to comply. That is disappointing that we have no voluntary compliance. It only comes from a court order. This is unacceptable.

“Every one of the federal FOIA officers should be at this witness table today telling us why they’re costing the taxpayer thousands of dollars fighting records requests in court, spilling black redactions all over the pages that should be public, and obstructing our Congressional mandate to perform oversight over the federal government.”

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