Washington, D.C. – Congresswoman Elise Stefanik joined her Republican colleagues on the House Intelligence Committee in sending a letter to President Biden demanding the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) comply with the Committee’s Congressional oversight efforts regarding the COVID-19 origins investigation and provide a full list of outside doctors and scientists consulted by the Intelligence Community (IC) during its investigation.
After the IC report on COVID’s origins, Committee members expressed in the letter concern over the possibility of scientists consulted by the IC who may have financial or professional ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Instead of providing the lawmakers answers on who was consulted, the ODNI consistently stonewalled the members’ inquiries and jeopardized the credibility of the IC report.
“The Chinese Communist Party has lied about the origins of COVID, costing millions of lives and trillions of dollars in economic impact across the globe, and the world deserves to know the truth,” Stefanik said. “It is shameful the Biden Administration would obstruct our legal Congressional oversight efforts to get to the bottom of what really happened in Wuhan. We must know if these scientists are giving us the full truth. The world has suffered enough due to China’s deception, and the American people deserve answers, not more lies.”
“Outside doctors and scientists who were consulted for their technical analyses of COVID’s potential origins are not clandestine sources or spies. They are consultants and there is no basis for stonewalling the Committee about their identities. Without this information, we cannot find the IC’s report remotely credible,” the lawmakers wrote.
After the IC report came out, Stefanik authored a Fox News op-ed with Congressman Rob Wittman (R-Va.) pushing for the truth on the origins of COVID-19. In June, they introduced the World Deserves To Know Act, legislation to sanction Chinese Health Agency officials until there is an independent, unimpeded investigation into the origins of COVID-19 to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable.
Read the full letter here.
