Sen. Marshall Questions Fauci About Gain of Function Research Funding at Wuhan Institute of Virology

(Washington, D.C., January 11, 2022) – U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. today questioned Dr. Anthony Fauci at a hearing about a recent report showing he provided dishonest testimony under oath about funding viral gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The report, sent to the Department of Defense (DOD) Inspector General, stated EcoHealth Alliance approached the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 2018 seeking funding to conduct gain of function research on bat borne coronaviruses. The proposal, named Project Defuse, was rejected by DARPA because the project didn’t address the research’s potential to violate the gain-of-function moratorium. The report also states that the same research rejected by DARPA for gain of function potential was carried by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under Dr. Fauci’s leadership. In turn, research took place at the Wuhan Institute of Virology with the same personnel and virus variants proposed for experimentation under Project Defuse. You may click HERE or on the image below to watch Senator Marshall’s questioning and Dr. Fauci’s refusal to turn over any and all records – fully unredacted – so Congress and the American people can know the truth about NIH’s role and the origin of COVID-19.

Background:

Having been the first member of Congress to sound the alarm on the House floor about the spread of COVID-19 and later serving on the frontlines as a volunteer treating patients in Wyandotte County and Seward County, Senator Marshall has been leading the effort in the U.S. Senate to get to the bottom of the origins of COVID-19.

The Senator introduced a resolution calling for a bipartisan Select Committee to investigate the origins of COVID-19. The Senate passed a bipartisan amendment offered by Senator Marshall and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) calling for a transparent investigation into the COVID-19 outbreak mandated by the World Health Assembly during its current session, which ends on Monday. Additionally, if China continues on its path of cover-up and obfuscation, the Marshall-Gillibrand Amendment demands a full, transparent investigation to include the U.S. and our allies and partners around the world. In fact, Senators Marshall and Gillibrand held the first joint bipartisan Senate briefing on the origins of COVID-19 bringing together healthcare, national security, medical, and academic experts.

Senators Marshall and Gillibrand joined forces with Senators Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to introduce bipartisan legislation to create a 9/11-style commission to investigate COVID-19 origins and identify lessons learned regarding U.S. preparedness, response, and recovery to improve our ability to respond to future outbreaks. Senators Marshall and Gillibrand were on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to discuss the legislation.

Senator Marshall was the first U.S. Senator to demand answers from the DOD and HHS on possible COVID-19 infections of U.S. Army troops who participated in the 2019 World Military Games that took place in Wuhan, China from October 18-28, 2019.

Senator Marshall released a multi-step path forward on getting to the bottom of the origins of COVID-19 and holding China accountable for its actions surrounding the earliest days of the outbreak. Since then, he has introduced the Chinese Communist Party Accountability Act to place sanctions on the top two Chinese health officials with early ties to the COVID-19 outbreak who obfuscated actionable information; the Viral Gain of Function Research Moratorium Act to place a moratorium on all federal research grants to universities and other organizations conducting gain-of-function research and risky research on potential pandemic pathogens; and the National BioSecurity Improvement Act to ensure federally-funded research involving potentially dangerous pathogens does not compromise national security. You may click HERE or on the image below to read the Senator’s multi-step path forward.

Earlier in the year, Senator Marshall released a video walking viewers through a 3D timeline of the origins of COVID-19.

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