Investigating COVID-19 Origins
Tracking Updates with the House Committee investigation into the COVID-19 Bioweapon
Executive Summary We call for an independent government commission to investigate the events surrounding COVID-19, including the actions of government and non-governmental agencies, and the individuals involved. If crimes are discovered, we advocate for prosecution at the highest levels of international and domestic law.
Rand Paul Reads Out Secret Communications Of Fauci's Team About COVID-19's Origins
Senate Homeland Security Committee Holds Hearing on the Origins of COVID-19
The Senate's Homeland Security Committee met to hold a hearing on the origins of Covid. They discussed a leaked DARPA proposal to create a chimeric bat virus in the lab, to insert a special furin cleavage site, to test it in “humanized” mice, and do this all, in part, to study its potential to emerge as a pandemic. The proposal looked an awful lot like a blueprint for SARS-CoV-2.
DARPA rejected the grant proposal as too risky. However, most were also recipients of NIH/ NIAID funds, under Dr. Fauci.
The hearing attempted to get to the bottom of who created SARS-CoV-2 and why. But the Senators were still not able to access the US government information they needed to solve this. Despite filing a lawsuit for Fauci’s emails, NIH refused to provide Congress the contents of the last 50 redacted pages.
What could be so secret that it must be hidden from the people's representatives in Congress?
Testimony From CIA Whistleblower Alleges New Information on COVID-19 Origins
The House Select Subcommittee on COVID-19 origins released an open letter detailing a whistleblower allegation that the CIA paid off six analysts to change their assessment that the COVID-19 virus originated in Wuhan, China, to instead assert that the virus evolved naturally.
Staff on the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence have heard testimony from a whistleblower alleging that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) offered six analysts significant monetary incentives to change their position on COVID-19’s origin. The whistleblower, who presents as a highly credible senior-level CIA officer, alleges that of the seven members assigned to the CIA team tasked with analyzing COVID-19 origins, six officers concluded that the virus likely originated from a lab in Wuhan, China. The CIA, then however, allegedly offered financial incentives to six of the experts involved in the investigation to change their conclusion in favor of a zoonotic origin. Chairman Wenstrup and Chairman Turner are requesting that all documents and communications related to the CIA’s COVID-19 origins review be made immediately available to the Committees. The Chairmen additionally request that former CIA COO Andrew Makridis appear for a voluntary transcribed interview on September 26, 2023. Any improper influence exerted by the CIA will be investigated to ensure accountability from the intelligence community.
This intelligence report was subsequently used by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to assert that the intelligence community could not determine the origins of COVID-19. The Biden administration elevated this assessment to dismiss claims that COVID-19 was a man-made rather than naturally occurring virus.
The reason behind this allegedly doctored intelligence report was a U.S. intelligence assessment that determined that the COVID-19 virus originated at the Wuhan lab would implicate the U.S. government in funding gain-of-function research through grants from the Fauci-led NIAID and the Pentagon to the EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S. biotech firm. This would also contradict Dr. Fauci’s claims before Congress that the U.S. has never funded gain-of-function research.
The same nexus between public health and national security officials was subsequently used to censor “vaccine disinformation” as the Biden administration directed Big Tech companies to censor reporting on adverse reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine or reporting that analyzed the efficacy of the vaccine — while the Biden administration was simultaneously issuing federal mandates related to the COVID-19 vaccine and the wearing of masks. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later ruled that the Biden administration ultimately engaged in illegal censorship efforts in its efforts to combat COVID-19 “disinformation.”
Equally troubling is that in October 2019, three months before the release of COVID-19 became public knowledge, Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security, in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum, held a roundtable exercise on how to handle “an outbreak of a novel zoonotic coronavirus transmitted from bats to pigs to people that eventually becomes efficiently transmissible from person to person, leading to a severe pandemic.”
Reference
Feds suspend, propose personal funding ban on Peter Daszak of Wuhan funder EcoHealth Alliance
WASHINGTON — Today, Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) issued the following statement after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) commenced formal debarment proceedings against Dr. Peter Daszak, the President of EcoHealth Alliance, Inc. This move comes one week after HHS issued a government-wide suspension on all funds allocated to the EcoHealth organization. During a hearing with National Institutes of Health (NIH) Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak last week, the Chairman personally recommended that HHS take this important, additional action. Dr. Daszak’s individual debarment will prevent him from accepting funds from the U.S. taxpayer.
“EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter Daszak’s personal debarment will ensure he never again receives a single cent from U.S. taxpayers nor has the opportunity to start a new, untrustworthy organization. This step comes just two weeks after the Select Subcommittee released substantial evidence of Dr. Daszak’s contempt for the American people, his flagrant disregard for the risks associated with gain-of-function research, and his willful violation of the terms of his NIH grant. Last night, based partially on that evidence, HHS doubled down on its recent suspension of funds to EcoHealth Alliance, Inc. by commencing debarment proceedings against the head of the organization.
“Dr. Daszak’s impending debarment does not shield him from accountability to the American people. It appears that Dr. Daszak may have lied under oath about his relationship with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and his compliance with NIH grant procedures. The Select Subcommittee intends to hold Dr. Daszak accountable for any dishonesty and reminds him that this debarment decision does not preclude him from producing all outstanding documents and answering all the questions of this Congressional body,” said Chairman Wenstrup.
Classified State Department Documents Credibly Suggest COVID-19 Lab Leak, Officials Push for Declassification
The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic recently reviewed classified U.S. Department of State (State Department) documents that credibly suggest COVID-19 originated from a lab related accident in Wuhan, China. The documents also strongly convey that the Chinese Communist Party attempted to cover-up the lab leak and that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) maintains a relationship with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) is requesting the State Department rapidly declassify this information and share the truth about the origins of COVID-19 with the American people. These documents were previously released in an unclassified and highly redacted Freedom of Information Act production, first obtained and reported on by U.S. Right to Know — a nonprofit working to expose government failures that threaten public health. The redacted documents showed numerous, highly suggestive subject lines including:
“Initial Outbreak Could Have Been Contained in China if Beijing Had Not Covered it Up”
“Xi Lied to Obfuscate His Role in the Cover-Up”
“PLA Contractor Involved in the Construction of the Wuhan Institute of Virology”
“PLA Presence at WIV Continued After Construction Completed”
“Official Chinese Websites Show Robust Cooperation between WIV and PLA”
“Cyber Evidence of PLA Shadow Labs at WIV and Bioengineering University”
As mounting evidence continues to point to a lab related accident in Wuhan, China as the likely origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, safely removing these superfluous redactions is a step towards transparency and accountability.
“We write to you today to request that you immediately take steps to declassify this information such that the American people have a more complete picture of the government’s evidence regarding the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic,” wrote Chairman Wenstrup.
View the highly redacted State Department documents here and here.
Read Chairman Wenstrup’s letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken here.
Executive Summary
The origin of the furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, has been a topic of significant scientific investigation and debate. Here's an overview of what is known based on current evidence:
Natural Origin Hypothesis
Evolutionary Processes: Many scientists believe the furin cleavage site could have arisen naturally through evolutionary processes. Coronaviruses, like many other viruses, can acquire new genetic features through mutations and recombination. The furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2 is similar to those found in other coronaviruses, suggesting it could have evolved naturally.
Precedents in Other Viruses: The presence of furin cleavage sites in other viruses, including other coronaviruses like MERS-CoV and certain strains of avian influenza, supports the idea that such features can arise without human intervention. These sites are known to enhance viral infectivity and spread.
Zoonotic Transmission: The leading hypothesis is that SARS-CoV-2 originated in bats and possibly passed through an intermediate host before infecting humans. Zoonotic transmission provides a natural pathway for the virus to acquire new features like the furin cleavage site.
Artificial Origin Hypothesis
Laboratory Origin Theory: Some have speculated that the furin cleavage site could have been artificially inserted into the virus in a laboratory setting. This theory often centers around the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where research on bat coronaviruses was being conducted. However, there is no direct evidence to support this claim.
Molecular Evidence: Proponents of the artificial origin theory point to the specific sequence of the furin cleavage site, suggesting it might be too unique to have arisen naturally. However, this argument has not been widely accepted in the scientific community, as similar sequences can and do occur naturally.
Scientific Journals
SARS-CoV-2 has continued to evolve as it moves through the population, and we have learned more about its pathogenicity and transmission determinants. As previously commented in The Lancet Microbe, one of these determinants is the unusual furin cleavage site (FCS) on its spike protein.1 While it has been proposed that the FCS might have been engineered, it is becoming clearer that natural selection is, in fact, the driving factor in its acquisition and functionality, through recombination and epistasis.
Reference: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(23)00144-1/fulltext
Compared with other SARS-related coronaviruses (SARSr-CoVs), SARS-CoV-2 possesses a unique furin cleavage site (FCS) in its spike. This has stimulated discussion pertaining to the origin of SARS-CoV-2 because the FCS has been observed to be under strong selective pressure in humans and confers the enhanced ability to infect some cell types and induce cell–cell fusion. Furthermore, scientists have demonstrated interest in studying novel cleavage sites by introducing them into SARSr-CoVs. We review what is known about the SARS-CoV-2 FCS in the context of its pathogenesis, origin, and how future wildlife coronavirus sampling may alter the interpretation of existing data.
Reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8689951/
NIH lab in Montana did cross-species bat experiments with Wuhan coronaviruses before COVID.
Senators Joni Ernst (R., Iowa) and Eric Schmitt (R., Mo.) are demanding answers from the National Institutes of Health on an American taxpayer-funded lab that reportedly experimented with coronaviruses over a year before the pandemic.
Virologists, including one researcher from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China, conducted “potentially risky research” at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) in Hamilton, Mont., in 2018, Ernst and Schmitt said. The scientists at RML infected 12 Egyptian fruit bats with a coronavirus obtained from WIV while both labs were funded by the NIH under Dr. Anthony Fauci’s leadership, according to published research recently reported by the Daily Mail.
Pigs, primates, rodents, and other animals were also subjected to coronavirus and Ebola tests.
The senators relayed their concerns about steps the Montana-based lab is taking to prevent a potential lab leak to NIH director Monica Bertagnolli in a letter sent Wednesday.
“In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which experts in the intelligence community believe likely leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, every precaution must be taken to prevent such an avoidable tragedy from ever happening again,” Ernst and Schmitt wrote.
“There is no room for error and no excuse for carelessness, since even a minor mishap can be catastrophic when dealing with dangerous biological agents, especially those with pandemic potential,” they added, worried that the American lab’s research could result in a future pandemic.
The letter cited instances of security-protocol breaches at RML, including an unauthorized child wandering near the primate facility and a mouse infected with a virus similar to Ebola roaming outside its cage for one day.
Furthermore, the lawmakers pressed the NIH director on the role that Fauci and the research non-profit EcoHealth Alliance played at both WIV and RML.
“As recently as last year, RML cited EcoHealth as an active collaborator on research on cross-species transmission of coronaviruses from bats and other deadly pathogens,” the letter read. “Needless to say, we are deeply concerned NIH continues to invite this shady organization to collaborate, especially on pandemic prevention studies, since the group has thus far not prevented any pandemics, but may have caused one.”
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which operates under NIH, funded gain-of-function research through EcoHealth, a nonprofit that contracted the Wuhan lab “for the past 5 years,” according to an email revealed in September.
The Republican lawmakers asked the NIH to answer what pathogens with pandemic potential are being modified to become more infectious and deadly and how the public will be alerted in case a biological agent escapes from the U.S. lab.
“We have watched the horror movie of Chinese state-run Wuhan Lab’s experiments on coronaviruses in bats, and I have worked to defund EcoHealth’s dangerous projects. To willingly allow the sequel to happen at the taxpayers’ expense is plain batty,” Ernst said in a statement provided to National Review. “But under Fauci’s leadership, Rocky Mountain Lab has increased its risky research of pandemic potential. We cannot allow what happened in Wuhan on our own shores, which is why I’m working to prevent any future lab leak.”
The White Coat Waste Project, a taxpayer-watchdog group, released an investigative exposé last week that uncovered how bats from a Maryland zoo made their way to a taxpayer-funded lab in Montana for researchers to infect them with coronaviruses. Their investigation has since prompted congressmen, such as Representative Matt Rosendale (R., Mont.) as well as Ernst and Schmitt, to take action.
In a statement provided to National Review, the group’s senior vice president Justin Goodman said of the latest news: “We applaud Senators Joni Ernst and Eric Schmitt for taking swift and decisive action in response to our investigations to hold the NIH accountable for wasting taxpayer dollars on cruel, unnecessary, and potentially catastrophic animal tests. A majority of taxpayers—Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike—oppose the NIH’s gain-of-function experiments and other dangerous virus experiments on animals and want Congress to defund them before they cause another pandemic. The solution is simple: Stop the money. Stop the madness!”
Conclusion
In addition to all the evidence provided here forth is the troubling fact that in October 2019, three months before the release of COVID-19 became public knowledge, Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security, in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum, held a roundtable exercise on how to handle “an outbreak of a novel zoonotic coronavirus transmitted from bats to pigs to people that eventually becomes efficiently transmissible from person to person, leading to a severe pandemic.”
The event aimed to demonstrate “areas where public/private partnerships will be necessary during the response to a severe pandemic” and issue policy guidance on how governments and private organizations should manage a global coronavirus pandemic.
The consensus of this roundtable was that during pandemics, governments and private organizations needed to “flood the zone” of media outlets with governmental health guidance rather than independent reporting while relying on social media platforms to censor misinformation to ensure a unified governmental response to pandemics. Avril Haines, President Biden’s director of national intelligence, was present at this roundtable.
The actions taken by the U.S. in response to COVID-19 were, therefore, a manifestation of Eisenhower’s warning over U.S. public policy becoming beholden to a scientific elite.
Relative to today, many Americans understand firsthand the dangers of this scientific elite and how it was turned against them. Over 8,300 service members were discharged from the military for not complying with the Department of Defense’s unconstitutional vaccine mandate, an estimated 200,000 small businesses in the United States have been permanently closed due to the lockdowns, and over 80 million Americans faced the prospect of either taking the vaccine or losing their job as the administration attempted to use the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to enforce vaccination mandates before the Supreme Court intervened to strike down this order.
Dr. Fauci’s recent accusation that unvaccinated Americans are responsible for the deaths of 200,000 of 300,000 Americans is not only void of scientific backing, but it more broadly shows little accountability for the unconstitutional guidance perpetrated by him.
As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stated, “The framers of the Constitution did not put a pandemic exception in the Constitution.”
Dr. Fauci’s bypassing that principle should bear more scrutiny, not unvaccinated Americans.
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