In a major victory for bipartisanship, Senator Josh Hawley has convinced the entire Senate to vote unanimously for a bill over the Wuhan lab. The bill requires the Biden administration to declassify all intelligence relating to the origin of COVID-19, including details on what happened inside the Wuhan laboratory.
The bill comes as more evidence leads to the conclusion that the virus leaked from the lab, a claim originally made by President Trump and for which his tweets had been flagged as false. As of Thursday, Facebook stopped flagging as “false,” comments that made the claim as they had done for the past year.
Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Mike Braun from Indian submitted their proposal, known as the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2021, to require that the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) declassify to Americans U.S. intelligence on the alleged links between China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and the origins of the virus last month. The bill was passed by unanimous consent.
Hawley told the Senate floor on Wednesday that the bill gives an opportunity to the American public to evaluate the evidence for themselves, adding that this is only the first step.
“They deserve it. Their government owes it to them, and it’s time to act,” Hawley said. “And the American people deserve something else. They deserve to have this government hold accountable that nation which started this virus, whose lies about this virus turned it into a global pandemic, whose lies about this virus prevented our country and many others from being able to address it effectively in time—of course I’m talking about China.”
If enacted, the documents that could be declassified could pertain to activities performed by the Wuhan Institute of Virology with or on behalf of the People’s Liberation Army, coronavirus research or other related activities performed at the Wuhan Institute of Virology prior to the outbreak of COVID–19, and information about researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who fell ill in Autumn 2019.
The DNI will then be required to present a report to Congress containing the declassified information within 90 days of the bill’s potential enactment.
Sen. Braun added, “President Biden must declassify all U.S. intel related to the Wuhan lab and COVID-19 pandemic, so the American people and independent researchers can get answers.”
The White House began entertaining the evidence of the Wuhan connection after The Wall Street Journal reported on May 23 that three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized in November 2019 with symptoms consistent with seasonal flu and COVID-19, the disease caused by the Covid virus. The newspaper cited unnamed U.S. government sources familiar with a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report.
President Donald Trump and millions of other Facebook and Twitter users had their Wuhan lab comments removed or labeled as false information during the past 13 months. The actions by Big Tech has brought up serious concerns of censorship.
It was revealed this week that Dr. Anthony Fauci funnelled $600,000 to the Wuhan lab.
–Wire services
