House Republicans will follow the Senate in attempting to pass a bill that would require the Biden administration to declassify intelligence related to any potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origins of the novel coronavirus.
The Senate on Wednesday voted unanimously to pass the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2021 — reintroduced last month by Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Mike Braun of Indiana — days after the U.S. Energy Department concluded that the lab leak theory is the most likely explanation for COVID-19's origin.
"It's been three years since COVID-19 upended our lives, and we're still asking basic questions about the origins of this virus. That's unacceptable," House Select Committee on China Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., told Fox News Digital.
"The question of how this pandemic began is the most important question in the world, and we should not continue to waste precious time waiting for the Chinese Communist Party to suddenly cooperate with U.S. officials and open up access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It's time for Congress to act and force the administration to declassify the relevant intelligence surrounding the pandemic," he added.
The GOP-led House bill, reintroduced this week by Gallagher, says identifying the origin of COVID-19 "is critical for preventing a similar pandemic from occurring in the future."
"There is reason to believe the COVID-19 pandemic may have originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology; and the director of national intelligence should declassify and make available to the public as much information as possible about the origin of COVID-19 so the United States and like-minded countries can identify the origin of COVID-19 as expeditiously as possible and use that information to take all appropriate measures to prevent a similar pandemic from occurring again."
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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