Fauci-Funded EcoHealth Refuses to Give Wuhan Documents to Congress

Four months before the Obama administration suspended federal funding for gain-of-function research on US soil, the process by which virologists manipulate viruses to be more transmissible to humans, a subagency of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci – effectively shifted this research to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) via a grant to nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance, headed by Peter Daszak.

The first $666,442 installment of EcoHealth’s $3.7 million NIH grant was paid in June 2014, with similar annual payments through May 2019 under the “Understanding The Risk Of Bat Coronavirus Emergence” project, as we noted in April.

As we noted in April, the WIV “had openly participated in gain-of-function research in partnership with U.S. universities and institutions” for years under the leadership of Dr. Shi ‘Batwoman’ Zhengli, according to the Washington Post‘s Josh Rogin.

Now, Daszak is refusing to comply with a months-old document request from House Republicans related to his work at the Wuhan lab, according to Just The News.

As government investigators and journalists dig to uncover the full scope of Daszak’s links to the WIV, Daszak is continuing to spurn a congressional request for that information. 

In April, Republicans on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce sent Daszak a letter directing him to submit, among many other documents, “all letters, emails, and other communications between [EcoHealth] and [the WIV] related to terms of agreements, bat coronaviruses, genome or genetic sequencing, SARS-CoV-2, and/or laboratory safety practices” pursuant to key NIH research funding through EcoHealth to the Wuhan lab as a grant sub-recipient.

Yet Daszak himself has not cooperated with the request. An aide with the Energy and Commerce Committee confirmed to Just the News this week that the committee has “received no response still from EcoHealth Alliance and Peter Daszak to the April 16th letter from Leaders Rodgers, Guthrie, and Griffith.” -JTN

“We have asked Daszak to provide information we know he has that sheds light on the origins of this pandemic,” said GOP Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who has also publicly noted Daszak’s refusal to play ball.

“Dr. Daszak, you received American funds you used to conduct research on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Rodgers continued during a House subcommittee meeting last week. “You owe it to the American people to be transparent.”

Meanwhile, Congressional Democrats aren’t actually interested in getting to the bottom of things – as they themselves hold subpoena power in both chambers. The ultimate authority, as JTN notes, rests with that party – specifically Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone – who notably boosted funding to Fauci’s NIH in 2015 to the tune of $2 billion per year through 2020.