NEW: House Votes Unanimously to Force Biden Admin to Declassify and Make Available to Public ‘Any and All’ Intel on Covid Origin, Wuhan Lab
The Yomiuri Shimbun via AP Images
The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday voted 419-0 to force the Biden administration to declassify all intelligence gathered to date on the origins of Covid. The bipartisan, unanimous vote sends the COVID Origins Act to President Joe Biden, who has not indicated whether he will sign it.
“The American public deserves answers to every aspect of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Republican House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Michael Turner in remarks before the bill was passed.
The Covid-19 Origin Act will “require the Director of National Intelligence to declassify information relating to the origin of COVID–19, and for other purposes.”
The bill specifically requires investigation of the theory that the Covid-19 pandemic began with a leak from the Wuhan, China virology lab.
It is the sense of Congress that—
(1) identifying the origin of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID–19) is critical for preventing a similar pandemic from occurring in the future;
(2) there is reason to believe the COVID–19 pandemic may have originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology; and
(3) the Director of National Intelligence should declassify and make available to the public as much information as possible about the origin of COVID–19 so the United States and like-minded countries can—
(A) identify the origin of COVID–19 as expeditiously as possible, and
(B) use that information to take all appropriate measures to prevent a similar pandemic from occurring again.
It instructs the Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, to “declassify any and all information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID–19).”
Floor speeches were essentially in agreement on the point that the American people want and deserve answers on the origins of Covid, and to understand what the government has learned so far about it.
The passage follows recent broader acceptance of the once-dismissed hypothesis that the Covid-19 pandemic began with a Wuhan lab leak. The Department of Energy recently joined the FBI in asserting that it finds it the currently most likely explanation for the pandemic.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) had already passed the Senate and now needs only the president’s signature.
An official with the Chinese Embassy in D.C., Li Xiang, wrote a letter to Sen. Hawley this month demanding he withdraw the legislation.
Hawley responded by tweet, writing, “Hahaha. Not a chance” on Thursday.
