The Department of Justice has begun a criminal investigation into the origins of Covid-19, with an emphasis on the involvement of EcoHealth Alliance and its ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), according to a House Oversight Select Subcommittee report published Monday. The inquiry comes after claims that taxpayer-funded gain-of-function studies connected to the pandemic’s breakout were improperly managed.
- The 520-page report, led by Rep. Brad Wenstrup, claims EcoHealth Alliance facilitated risky research at the WIV using $600,000 in U.S. taxpayer-funded grants.
- The DOJ convened a grand jury to investigate EcoHealth Alliance s activities, including alleged obstruction by its president, Dr. Peter Daszak, who is accused of misleading Congress and tampering with documents.
- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services barred the WIV from receiving government funding for 10 years starting in 2023, with proposed penalties for EcoHealth Alliance still pending.
- Federal agencies, including USAID and the National Science Foundation, have suspended funding to EcoHealth Alliance following the HHS decision.
- The DOJ has refrained from public comment, and EcoHealth Alliance has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of the investigation.
In the midst of ongoing efforts to identify the origins of the Covid-19 outbreak, the subcommittee’s findings heighten scrutiny of U.S.-funded research relationships with foreign firms.
House Oversight Report Says Biden DOJ Opened Criminal Investigation Into Covid-19 s Origins
The Department of Justice launched a criminal inquiry into the origins of the Covid-19 outbreak, according to the findings of a two-year investigation into the pandemic revealed Monday by a congressional oversight subcommittee.
The 520-page report from the House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, which was chaired by Republican Representative Brad Wenstrup of Kentucky, found that the U.S.-based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance had used taxpayer funds to support gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, prior to the pandemic’s outbreak. The DOJ has established a criminal grand jury to look into EcoHealth Alliance’s pandemic-era operations, the oversight subcommittee also discovered.
In addition to being the focus of various government investigations into its possible involvement in the COVID-19 pandemic, EcoHealth was also accused of violating federal grant restrictions on several occasions. According to the study, the results of the majority of these investigations are available to the public. That Select Subcommittee did learn, however, that DOJ was also looking into the origins of COVID-19. Although the investigation’s specifics are unknown, documents suggest that the DOJ is looking into EcoHealth’s involvement in the COVID-19 outbreak.
The report leaves open the potential that the DOJ’s investigation into the origins of the epidemic and EcoHealth Alliance is still underway, and the department has declined to comment on the matter.
The Daily Caller previously reported that EcoHealth Alliance, a longtime partner of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), gave the Wuhan lab $600,000 in National Institutes of Health subgrants between 2014 and 2019 to investigate bat-based coronaviruses. According to the report, the research organization headed by Dr. Peter Daszak failed to sufficiently monitor the Chinese entity’s gain-of-function trials and deceived the NIH about the WIV’s gain-of-function research that was partially supported by U.S. taxpayer monies.
Daszak has also been charged by the oversight subcommittee with misleading subcommittee officials and hindering the panel’s inquiry into EcoHealth Alliance.
According to the report, Dr. Peter Daszak, the president of EcoHealth, made material available to the public, told his employees to slow down productions, and altered documents before making them public, all of which hindered the Select Subcommittee’s investigation. Additionally, Dr. Daszak gave Congress misleading information.
Documents obtained by the select committee show that the DOJ subpoenaed EcoHealth Alliance’s correspondence with the WIV’s chief virologist, Dr. Zhengli Shi. It was not possible for the oversight subcommittee to ascertain whether the agency had sent out any more subpoenas seeking EcoHealth Alliance’s correspondence with other organizations.
The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic was able to collect emails that disclosed that EcoHealth Alliance was the subject of a DOJ grand jury investigation.
Beginning in July 2023, the WIV was debarred by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from accepting government grants for a ten-year period. According to the subcommittee report, the FDA also suggested debarring EcoHealth and Daszak in May 2024, but those judgments have not yet been finalized.
Following the HHS decision to order a government-wide cessation of financing to the NGO, the National Science Foundation and the US Agency for International Development likewise froze grants to EcoHealth Alliance this summer.
According to the authors of the report, EcoHealth Alliance declined to acknowledge or deny that the NGO was the subject of a DOJ grand jury inquiry.
The nonprofit’s attorneys emailed staff to respond to your question regarding the DOJ, saying, “We generally decline to provide any information about the existence or nonexistence of any investigation other than the SSCP’s own.” To be clear, my response should not be interpreted as confirming or refuting the existence of any investigation.
Requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation were not answered by the DOJ or EcoHealth Alliance.
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