{"id":1956339,"date":"2023-06-24T19:29:01","date_gmt":"2023-06-24T23:29:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gop-lawmakers-react-to-us-covid-origin-report-american-people-deserve-better\/"},"modified":"2023-06-24T19:30:36","modified_gmt":"2023-06-24T23:30:36","slug":"gop-lawmakers-react-to-us-covid-origin-report-american-people-deserve-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gop-lawmakers-react-to-us-covid-origin-report-american-people-deserve-better\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP lawmakers respond to US COVID origin report: &#8216;Americans deserve better&#8217;."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgop-lawmakers-react-to-us-covid-origin-report-american-people-deserve-better%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1956339&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"post_content\">\n<h2>Lawmakers Underwhelmed by Declassified COVID-19 Origins Report<\/h2>\n<p>Lawmakers who have long pressed for transparency on COVID-19 origins said they are underwhelmed by the declassified U.S. intelligence report, saying that the administration hasn\u2019t been fully transparent with what it knows.<\/p>\n<p>The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/us-declassifies-covid-19-origins-report_5354208.html\">released<\/a> the long-anticipated report on June 23 evening, days after missing a 90-day deadline mandated by the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023. Passed by Congress and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/biden-signs-bill-to-declassify-covid-origin-intelligence-on-wuhan-lab_5137128.html\">signed into law in March,<\/a> the act requires disclosure of any possible links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which has been viewed as a likely pandemic origin.<\/p>\n<p>While providing glimpses into activities going on at the Wuhan lab before the pandemic, the 10-page report\u2014including three pages in appendices\u2014isn\u2019t conclusive on the virus source, instead leaving it open whether it may have been a product of nature or the lab.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>\u201cThis Friday night \u2018news\u2019 dump of a mere 10-page summary is a slap in the face of Americans who deserve full transparency about what information the government possesses regarding the origins of COVID-19,\u201d<\/h3>\n<p>said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4612461\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2022\/07\/21\/GettyImages-1238858184-1200x800.jpg\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><\/noscript><\/figcaption><\/a><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cPerhaps the most important lesson we\u2019ve learned throughout the pandemic is that our government must be honest and forthcoming if we are ever to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-justice-department-nominee-faces-ethics-minefield-from-fathers-corporate-interests\/\" title=\"Biden Justice Department Nominee Faces Ethics Minefield From Father\u2019s Corporate Interests\">restore public trust<\/a> and obtain justice for the victims of the pandemic\u2014both those who lost their lives to the virus and those whose lives were harmed by unscientific lockdowns and mandates. This report fails to live up to either,\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), who sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, noted reports earlier this week confirming names of the Wuhan virology lab researchers who had fallen ill with COVID-like symptoms in the autumn of 2019. While there\u2019s no definitive evidence whether those researchers had contracted the virus, one of those researchers was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/proposed-amendment-to-defense-bill-aims-to-get-to-the-bottom-of-covid-origins_5351148.html\">identified as Ben Hu<\/a>, who worked for years on U.S.-funded bat coronavirus research together with Shi Zhengli, the Chinese virologist who has been linked to the lab leak controversy.<\/p>\n<p>The Friday report raised biosafety concerns with WIV\u2019s handling of SARS-like viruses, the shortage of properly trained personnel at the facility, and experiments on SARS-like coronavirus in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/scientists-find-covid-contains-chunk-of-dna-that-matches-sequence-patented-by-moderna-three-years-before-pandemic-began\/\" title=\"Scientists Find COVID Contains Chunk of DNA That Matches Sequence Patented by Moderna Three Years Before Pandemic Began\">lower biosafety labs<\/a> in early 2019 despite known risks. It maintained that the presence of sick researchers \u201cneither supports nor refutes either hypothesis of the pandemic\u2019s origins because the researchers\u2019 symptoms could have been caused by a number of diseases and some of the symptoms were not consistent with COVID-19.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>\u201cThis DNI release does none of that and, in many ways, obscures more than it illuminates,\u201d<\/h3>\n<p>he said, calling it \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5355086\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2023\/06\/24\/id5355086-GettyImages-1235604851-1200x800.jpg\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><\/noscript><\/figcaption><\/a><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThe American people deserve better,\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kans.) likewise suggested that the administration may have withheld information.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs we\u2019ve seen nearly every step of the way while trying to uncover the origins of the COVID-19 virus, the Biden Administration has failed to be transparent with the American people and members of Congress,\u201d he said, stressing that the release \u201cis late and does not provide the full picture of what our intelligence agencies know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The intelligence officials should appear before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, where he is a member, to \u201cwalk us through these materials so we can get to the bottom of the COVID-19 pandemic that killed over a million Americans,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Both the Energy Department and the FBI have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/fbi-assessed-covid-19-pandemic-likely-spread-from-wuhan-lab-fbi-director_5090477.html\">assessed<\/a> that th<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lawmakers seeking COVID-19 origin transparency express disappointment with the declassified U.S. intelligence report. They argue that the administration&#8217;s knowledge hasn&#8217;t been fully disclosed. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) released the report on June 23, after surpassing the 90-day deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":361,"featured_media":1956340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1956339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/361"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1956339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1956340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1956339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1956339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1956339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}