US Senator Josh Hawley on Friday called on Congress to investigate any United States links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where the novel coronavirus is suspected of originating, and probe whether any US officials have tried to prevent a full investigation into the matter.
Hawley is making his call after the release of a trove of emails from National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci from early in the pandemic. The emails show Fauci discussing allegations that the disease was created by China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology as credible in research partially funded by US taxpayer money.
“The public deserves to know if persons within the US [government] tried to stop a full investigation into COVID origins, as recently reported. And Congress must also find out to what extent Fauci’s NIAID was involved in financing research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Hawley said in a statement.
Hawley also called on Fauci to resign in light of the released emails.
President Joe Biden recently ordered the US intelligence community to produce a report re-examining the origins of the novel coronavirus and to help determine whether the disease leaked from a lab or spread from an infected animal to a human.
China continues to call the laboratory-leak theory a conspiracy.
