{"id":543600,"date":"2021-05-27T19:18:21","date_gmt":"2021-05-27T23:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=543600"},"modified":"2021-05-27T19:50:23","modified_gmt":"2021-05-27T23:50:23","slug":"gop-senators-seek-info-on-biden-halting-state-probe-on-covid-origin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gop-senators-seek-info-on-biden-halting-state-probe-on-covid-origin\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP Senators Seek Info on Biden Halting State Probe on COVID Origin"},"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\">24<\/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-senators-seek-info-on-biden-halting-state-probe-on-covid-origin%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=543600&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><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GetFile-471.aspx\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>President Joe Biden&#8217;s halting of a State Department investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, China, has two Senate Republicans requesting information on the move.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We write to request information regarding recent reports that &#8216;President Joe Biden&#8217;s team shut down&#8217; an investigation into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, which included examining the theory that the virus originated in a lab in Wuhan, China,&#8221; Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Rick Scott, R-Fla., wrote in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ronjohnson.senate.gov\/services\/files\/138CFFDD-1B57-49A3-9961-CD62B863EDB6\">letter<\/a> to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and President&nbsp;Biden.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson and Scott&#8217;s letter cited reports that the now-terminated State Department investigation &#8220;was the only inquiry looking seriously into the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The letter also noted Biden terminated the briefing after State Department investigators briefed the president in February and March.<\/p>\n<p>The senators also noted a number of skeptics of the World Health Organization investigation under China&#8217;s&nbsp;eyes, which considered a release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology &#8220;extremely unlikely.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Biden administration&#8217;s&nbsp;National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan warned, the senators quoted in the letter:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;We have deep concerns about the way in which the early findings of the COVID-19 investigation were communicated and questions about the process used to reach them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve got real concerns about the methodology and the process that went into that report, including the fact that the government in Beijing apparently helped to write it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>A long-time supporter of the WHO, Dr. Anthony Fauci expressed concern about the transparency of China with its probe access, the senators noted.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If, in fact, obviously, there was a lot of restrictions on the ability of the people who went there to really take a look, then I&#8217;m going to have some considerable concerns about that,&#8221; Fauci said.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, the letter added, 18 scientists noted the WHO&#8217;s conflicting logic in its report.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Although there were no findings in clear support of either a natural spillover or a lab accident, the [WHO] team assessed a zoonotic spillover from an intermediate host as &#8216;likely to very likely,&#8217; and a laboratory incident as &#8216;extremely unlikely,'&#8221; the scientists wrote. &#8220;Furthermore, the two theories were not given balanced consideration.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The letter requests information from the administration by June 10 &#8220;in order to better understand the State Department&#8217;s decision to terminate an investigation into [the] virus&#8217; origins.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While on May 26, 2021, President Biden ordered an intelligence report on the origins of SARS-CoV-2, it remains unclear why the State Department reportedly shut down a U.S.-led effort to investigate the virus&#8217; origins,&#8221; the letter read. &#8220;Understanding the origins of SARS-CoV-2 is foundational to the U.S. government&#8217;s efforts to prevent future pandemics and finally bring an end to the COVID-19 pandemic.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Joe Biden&#8217;s halting of a State Department investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, China, has two Senate Republicans requesting information on the move. &#8220;We write &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2313338,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GetFile-471.aspx","fifu_image_alt":"GOP Senators Seek Info on Biden Halting State Probe on COVID Origin","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-543600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GetFile-471.aspx","fifu_image_alt":"GOP Senators Seek Info on Biden Halting State Probe on COVID Origin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543600","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2313338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}