By CASEY HARPER
THE CENTER SQUARE
(The Center Square) – Republicans erupted in outrage after the Biden administration admitted over the weekend that the Wuhan lab was the most likely source of COVID-19, the same lab taxpayers have funded for years.
The Wall Street Journal first reported that a classified briefing from the U.S. Energy Department to the White House and key members of Congress confirmed that the Wuhan research lab is the most likely origin source of COVID-19.
“This report affirms our belief that the substantial circumstantial evidence favors COVID-19 emerging from a research-related incident,” U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Morgan Griffith, R-Va., and Subcommittee on Health Chair Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., said in a joint statement. “These revelations also further strengthen the need to uncover why high-ranking government officials, with help from Big Tech and the media, sought early on to silence any debate into a plausible theory of a lab incident while the Chinese Communist Party stonewalled investigations by the global scientific community.”
The Republicans vowed to dig into the matter.
“The American people deserve answers if we are to restore trust in our public health agencies and be better prepared for possible future pandemics,” the Republicans said. “Our committee, in coordination with others in the House Republican Conference, will continue to push for the truth.”
The Biden administration’s admission comes after Republicans were roundly mocked by other lawmakers and the media during the pandemic for making the same assertion.
In 2020, the Associated Press called the idea a “myth.” The same year, The New York Times called it a “conspiracy theory,” and The Washington Post called it a “fringe theory.”
The Washington Post wrote an article in February 2020 blasting U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., for pushing that “fringe theory.”
“Earlier versions of this story and its headline inaccurately characterized comments by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) regarding the origins of the coronavirus,” the publication said in a later correction to their story. “The term ‘debunked’ and The Post’s use of ‘conspiracy theory’ have been removed because, then as now, there was no determination about the origins of the virus.”
Sen. Cotton posted WSJ’s story to Twitter with a short message.
“Well, well, well….,” he wrote.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said the documents behind this story should be declassified. He and others have blasted Dr. Anthony Fauci, who repeatedly discouraged the idea that the virus originated from a lab.
“Fauci knew this immediately but dismissed it because of funding for the Wuhan lab,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo. “We know what happened next – when Fauci spoke Big Tech censored. I exposed this collusion as AG and I’ll work to ensure this type of censorship never happens again.”
