The Chairs of two House Committees have written a letter to Dr. Anthony Fauci, seeking information on the origins of the Covid-19 virus.
Rep. James Comer (R-KY), Chair of the Oversight Committee, and Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), Chair of the Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, have written not just to Fauci, the now-retired longtime Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, but also to National Intelligence Director Avril Haines, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Beccera and others.
Wenstrup is also a member of the House Intelligence Committee. Last year Republicans on House Intel issued a report asserting “indications” that Covid-19 may have been developed as a bioweapon inside the China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.
That’s in contradiction to an assessment by the U.S. intelligence community, which released a joint summary in August 2021 that the community did not believe Covid to be a bioweapon, although it may have been leaked in a laboratory accident.
Fauci is among many scientists who believe the Covid-19 virus has natural origins, and jumped from animals to humans—a phenomenon known as a spillover event. Since the August 2021 report, scientific researchers have not publicly identified any key new evidence that might make the lab-leak hypothesis more likely.
The letters issued Monday do not obligate the recipients to cooperate with the committees. However, Wenstrup has previously said if potential witnesses don’t cooperate, committee members may issue subpoenas.
