Republicans are expected to ramp up their probe into the origins of the Covid pandemic when, as many pollsters expect, they will gain control of the House of Representatives.
Several leading GOP lawmakers on influential committees have signaled their intent to launch a full-throated investigation into the possibility that the coronavirus was a devastating result of risky gain-of-function research and escaped from a high security lab.
The GOP will not only investigate the biological origins of the coronavirus and the Chinese government’s attempts to obscure its role in its proliferation, but also the use of taxpayer money in the form of research grants to fund risky research.
The Wuhan Instittue of Virology, from which many on the right believe the coronavirus escaped, was one beneficiary of government funding for high risk research.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert who shot to stardom for his leadership in curbing the spread of Covid-19, is also a target.
Rep Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) who is poised to ascend to the Energy and Commerce Committee chairmanship would gain the power to subpoena government officials as part of an investigation into Covid’s origins
Rep James Comer (R-KY) intends to pressure Dr Anthony Fauci on the origin of Covid and his role early in the pandemic to silence dissenting voices in the scientific community who did not subscribe to the natural spillover theory.
The question of whether the global outbreak began with a spillover from wildlife sold at the market or leaked out of the Wuhan lab just eight miles across the Yangtze River has given rise to fierce debate about how to prevent the next pandemic. New studies point to a natural spillover at the Huanan wildlife market. Positive swab samples of floors, cages and counters also track the virus back to stalls in the southwestern corner of the market (bottom left), where animals with the potential to harbor Covid were sold for meat or fur at the time (bottom right)
Security personnel keep watch outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology during the visit by the WHO team tasked with investigating the origins of Covid, February 3, 2021
Republicans such as Rep James Comer, a Kentucky Republican who could soon run the House Oversight and Reform Committee, intend to compel Dr Fauci to testify regarding apparent efforts by him to silence scientific experts who supported the lab leak theory.
While Fauci said in August that he intended to leave government service by year’s end, Rep Comer indicated that the doctor could still be on the hook to appear before Congress.
‘Retirement can’t shield Dr. Fauci from congressional oversight,’ Rep Comer said.
With Democrats controlling both chambers of Congress, GOP-led efforts to probe the lab leak theory have lost momentum.
But if Republicans on committees such as Energy and Commerce, and Oversight and Reform, are able to take over leadership positions, they will gain sweeping subpoena powers that would compel government health officials to comply with an investigation.
Rep Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) who is poised to ascend to the Energy and Commerce Committee chairmanship, said over the summer: ‘There are so many questions that need to be answered about the government’s response to Covid-19.
‘How the pandemic started, that’s probably the most important public health question that needs to be answered,’ she said.
Gaining that subpoena power would give Republicans the green light to compel testimony and obtain documents, likely sparking fierce political showdowns in Congressional hearings and partisan bickering behind the scenes.
The debate around the origins of Covid has been ongoing since the virus first began wreaking havoc in early 2020.
The theory that the virus was transferred from animals to humans was the prevailing one at that point, but the lab leak theory has gained considerable traction.
Proponents of the lab leak theory — including former President Donald Trump — were initially dismissed as conspiracy theorists or denounced as xenophobes.
Republicans have embraced the argument that the coronavirus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, where scientists study pathogens with pandemic potential, and the government there acted to cover it up.
Many GOP members also maintain that the Biden administration’s leading public health officials including Dr. Anthony Fauci and former NIH Director Francis Collins acted clandestinely to quash dissenting voices in the scientific community who supported the lab leak theory.
Republican House members are gearing up to summon Dr Fauci, despite his August retirement, to testify before committees about his moves to promote the theory that Covid-19 originated in animal reservoirs and was able to mutate so that it could then humans.
Rep Comer has already trained his focus on Dr Fauci and top Biden administration officials.
He said in August: ‘The American people have many questions for Dr. Fauci and we are determined to get answers.’
‘For the past two years, Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee have called for Dr. Fauci to testify before the committee and provide documents and information related to our investigation into COVID origination.
‘However, Democrats have shielded Dr. Fauci from any meaningful congressional oversight and have refused to invite him to appear before the committee. The origin of COVID-19—a virus with a death toll surpassing one million Americans and then six million globally—is a question that must be answered,’ Rep Comer added.
The Senate GOP, meanwhile, is similarly intent on probing the origins of Covid-19, though whether it will be able to remains to be seen.
While Republicans are heavily favored to win the House, it remains a dead heat in the Senate. In the event that the GOP successfully takes the upper chamber, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a staunch conservative, would become chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Sen Paul has clashed repeatedly with Dr Fauci in heated Congressional hearings dating back to the first year of the pandemic. He said in a campaign stop earlier this month that, ‘It’s not about Fauci going to jail, although that probably would be appropriate.’
‘I promise you I will subpoena every last record from Dr Fauci,’ Sen Paul said.
Senate Republicans have carried on their own investigation into the exact origins of the pandemic. The party released a report last week that concluded the most likely scenario was that ‘the COVID-19 pandemic was, more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident.’
The blockbuster report, which drew from hundreds of public research, said: ‘Nearly three years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, critical evidence that would prove that the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and resulting COVID-19 pandemic was caused by a natural zoonotic spillover is missing.’
The report’s authors accepted there is still crucial missing information about how the pandemic truly came to be — with no direct evidence for either natural or synthetic origin.
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