FoxNews.com reports that
State Department leaders were warned not to pursue an investigation into the origins of COVID-19, former department officials confirmed to Fox News on Thursday, amid fears that it would bring attention to U.S. funding of research at the Wuhan Institute where the virus may have escaped.
Vanity Fair reported that officials calling for transparency from the Chinese government were told not to explore the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s “gain of function” research, because it would bring what the outlet described as “unwelcome” attention of U.S. government funding into that research.
The outlet reported that Thomas DiNanno, a former acting assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, wrote in a January memo that staff from two bureaus “warned” leaders within his office not to probe the origins of the virus because it risked opening “a can of worms.”
Multiple former State Department officials told Fox News that the reported memo accurately describes what was happening at State at the time and that there was an effort among some officials at the department to oppose an extensive investigation into a possible lab leak.
However, a State Department spokesperson told Fox News on Thursday that “no-one prevented the disclosure of accurate, properly contextualized information” and that “no effort was made at any time to suppress or withhold information from senior policymakers or the public.”
The claims come amid fresh scrutiny over the theory that the COVID-19 pandemic could have escaped from the Wuhan lab, where viruses were being experimented on and where officials have said military research was being conducted alongside civilian research.
The theory was promulgated by a number of Trump officials — including President Trump himself — but was dismissed by many in the media and scientific community, where it was often declared to be debunked or a conspiracy theory.
But with Chinese stonewalling of a World Health Organization investigation into the origins of the virus, and reporting that multiple employees of the lab became sick in November 2019 that required hospitalization, the theory has reemerged.
The lengthy Vanity Fair piece delves into the back-and-forth at the State Department over how intensely to investigate the Chinese origins of the virus. The outlet reports that Chris Ford, then the acting undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security, was disinterested and even hostile to an investigation.
In a memo in January 2021, Ford pushed back against a panel of experts’ initial investigation, which he believed contained weak evidence, and warned “against suggesting that there is anything inherently suspicious—and suggestive of biological warfare activity—about People’s Liberation Army (PLA) involvement at WIV on classified projects.
“It would be difficult to say that military involvement in classified virus research is intrinsically problematic, since the U.S. Army has been deeply involved in virus research in the United States for many years,” he said, according to Vanity Fair.
It was with that that DiNanno pushed back with a memo of his own, reportedly accusing Ford of misrepresenting the panel’s finding — while objecting to “apprehension and contempt” from staff as well as warnings not to investigate the origins out of fear of opening a “can of worms.”
The State Department spokesperson told Fox News that “internal disagreements were about the quality of analysis and the importance of not overstating, or bending, evidence to fit preconceived narratives.”
Per WSJ.com, a number of Senators, including Ron Johnson and Dr. Rand Paul, recently sent a letter to Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the National Institute of Health. Here is an excerpt…
One of the notable NIH-funded studies that was already underway prior to the funding moratorium (in 2014) was Dr. Ralph Baric’s work on a “lab-made coronavirus related to SARS.” In this 2015 study, researchers reportedly created a chimeric virus “related to SARS [that] can infect human cells.” Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi, “China’s leading expert on bat viruses” from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, contributed to this research. An article noted that NIH allowed this study “to proceed while it was under review by the agency.” Baric reportedly added that “NIH eventually concluded that the work was not so risky as to fall under the [gain of function] moratorium.” It is unclear why NIH apparently concluded that this study was not “risky” enough to fall under the moratorium.
In addition to Baric’s apparent gain of function research in 2015, NIH and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) also reportedly funded similar coronavirus research conducted by EcoHealth Alliance, which subcontracted with Shi. Because of Shi’s research and her connection to the Wuhan lab, Dr. Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist and infectious disease expert, stated, “[i]t is clear that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was systematically constructing novel chimeric coronaviruses and was assessing their ability to infect human cells and human-ACE2-expressing mice.” In fact, Dr. Peter Dasazk, the president of EcoHealth Alliance, spoke about changing coronaviruses in a lab. In an interview Dasazk stated, “Well I think . . . coronaviruses — you can manipulate them in the lab pretty easily.”
In December 2017, NIH lifted the funding pause and established a multi-disciplinary review process, known as the P3CO Framework, to ensure that federally funded gain of function experiments are “conducted responsibly.” It is unclear whether EcoHealth Alliance or any of its subcontractors was granted an exception to the moratorium or whether NIH reviewed those studies in connection with the P3CO Framework.
The funding of research into bat viruses done by the Wuhan Institute, under the funding by the EcoHealth Alliance, lasted for over a decade.
Surprise! Surprise! Both the CDC and the NIH are partners of the Ecohealth Alliance.
Just as we found out during the whole charade known as “Russiagate”, there are Professional Bureaucrats who operate behind the scenes of our Federal Government, imperious and seemingly above the law.
Like a spider’s web of intrigue, they move in the shadows, spending our tax money on projects away from the eye of the public.
Projects like the Bat Virus Research done by the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
These projects remain unknown by the general public, until something unforeseen happens, like the “accident” at the Wuhan Institute which released COVID-19 on an unsuspecting world.
Former President Trump tried to clean out this rats’ nest of Professional Bureaucrats, naming them the Washington Swamp.
Unfortunately, he did not succeed and they eventually were able to arrange for a demented old man to be appointed the 46ths President of the United States of America.
The entire COVID-19 Catastrophe and Washington’s behind-the-scenes machinations during it, which resulted in a nationwide lockdown and a “radical change to our American way of life, has been all about controlling average Americans to get them used to having their individual freedom taken away from them.
These revelations concerning the Washington Swamp’s involvement with the funding of COVID-19 is just the beginning of horrifying things which were done in the darkness by bureaucrats which are about to find themselves illuminated by the light of truth.
Until He Comes,
KJ
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