A House committee set out to investigate COVID. Surprisingly, it’s making headway.
| Washington
When House Republicans formed a special committee to investigate the pandemic, the odds of bipartisan cooperation seemed low. COVID-19 origins, the first of nine topics it was charged with investigating, was highly politicized. But the committee’s hearings this month have been surprisingly bipartisan, marking a significant shift in the politics around the pandemic.
GOP investigations into U.S. taxpayer-funded research on coronaviruses in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the pandemic, were once dubbed a “witch hunt” by Democrats. The larger question of COVID-19 origins is still far from settled. But members from both parties are now moving to hold accountable federal officials and grantees – including a senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci, for an apparent breach in trust. And the Biden administration has acted on the committee’s recommendation to suspend funding to a key figure at the heart of the COVID-19 origins debate.
“It’s so important to restore confidence in public health and science by showing that where we identify misconduct, we take it seriously,” says Miles Lichtman, the Democratic staff director of the select subcommittee. “That is not a political issue; that is about best serving the American people.”
Why We Wrote This
A House committee’s substantive hearings this month stand in stark contrast to the grandstanding and partisan fights elsewhere in Congress – and have shed new light around a highly politicized issue.
When House Republicans formed a special committee to investigate the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2023, the odds of bipartisan cooperation seemed low.
Some of the members on the committee were considered bomb-throwers, more interested in generating viral clips than in passing legislation. And COVID-19 origins, the first of nine topics it was charged with investigating, was one of the most politicized issues in Washington.
With more than a year’s work under its belt, the committee has turned out to be surprisingly bipartisan – and effective. This week, it prompted the Biden administration to suspend funding to a scientist at the heart of the COVID-19 origins debate, Peter Daszak, and his organization. It also proposed debarring him and his nonprofit from receiving federal funds going forward. And on Wednesday, Democrats joined Republicans in grilling another scientist, a longtime adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci, about apparent efforts to shield his emails from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
Why We Wrote This
A House committee’s substantive hearings this month stand in stark contrast to the grandstanding and partisan fights elsewhere in Congress – and have shed new light around a highly politicized issue.
“It is not antiscience to hold you accountable for defying the public’s trust and misusing official resources,” said the top Democrat on the committee, Dr. Raul Ruiz of California.
The substantive hearings and bipartisan action from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic mark a significant shift in the politics around the issue. GOP investigations into U.S. taxpayer-funded research on coronaviruses in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the pandemic, were once dubbed a “witch hunt” by Democrats. The larger question of COVID-19 origins is still far from settled. But members of both parties are now moving to hold federal officials and grantees accountable for an apparent breach in trust.
“It’s so important to restore confidence in public health and science by showing that where we identify misconduct, we take it seriously,” says Miles Lichtman, the Democratic staff director of the select subcommittee. “That is not a political issue; that is about best serving the American people.”
“A breakthrough moment”
The committee has been particularly united in its dealings of late with Dr. Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based nonprofit that researches emerging diseases with the goal of preventing future pandemics.
Leading up to the pandemic, Dr. Daszak had been working with the Wuhan Institute of Virology on the potential for bat coronaviruses to jump to humans, funded by a grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Dr. Daszak and his allies have strenuously rejected speculation that their research may have had a role in sparking the pandemic. Many Democrats in the last Congress also dismissed such speculation as a conspiracy theory motivated by animus toward Dr. Fauci and his role in shaping national COVID-19 policies. That made it politically difficult to investigate transparency and compliance concerns surrounding Dr. Daszak and his organization.
However, a senior Democratic aide to the committee credits Dr. Ruiz with directing their team to keep an open mind and scrutinize the available facts. Likewise, Chair Brad Wenstrup, an Ohio doctor and Republican, says he’s sought to base the investigation on hard evidence, “not just innuendo.”
“We’re actually finding out what people said and did so that we can make a better plan going forward,” says Dr. Wenstrup in a phone interview.
Starting last fall, Democrats and Republicans sat together through more than 100 hours of transcribed interviews, including a lengthy one with Dr. Daszak, and reviewed reams of documents. That work led to a bipartisan grilling of him at a May 1 hearing.
“That was a breakthrough moment,” says a senior GOP aide.
Following the committee’s recommendation, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has suspended funding for both Dr. Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance and proposed they be debarred from receiving federal funds. Since 2008, the organization has received $90 million in federal funding, about 20% of which came through HHS, according to Nature.
In a May 21 letter, HHS faulted Dr. Daszak for his organization failing to notify the National Institutes of Health that the coronaviruses that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was studying had “appeared to grow beyond permissible thresholds.”
The National Institutes of Health had flagged that lapse in October 2021, after EcoHealth Alliance filed a progress report on its work nearly two years late; HHS did not explain why it is only now taking action against Dr. Daszak. However, it said that the cause was “of so serious or compelling a nature that it affects his present responsibility.”
Dr. Daszak strongly refutes that, noting the many steps he and his organization have taken to ensure compliance over the past few years. He says he will be “rigorously” contesting the proposed debarments and “presenting substantial evidence to demonstrate that they are inappropriate.”
“This has been a series of committee meetings and public hearings where a case to prosecute has been put forward without allowing the defendant to properly respond,” says Dr. Daszak in a phone interview. He notes that the GOP majority called for his debarment before hearing his testimony.
Some see the singular focus on him and his organization as scapegoating, possibly in an attempt to insulate others – including U.S. officials – from further scrutiny.
Meanwhile, Dr. Daszak says, the setback to his organization will have an “awful” impact on future pandemic prevention. Less than a week after his hearing, he says, an agency rescinded an offer for a five-year project EcoHealth Alliance had been planning on the risks of wildlife farming.
“At some point,” he adds, people will “realize what’s been lost, and realize how unfairly we’ve been treated.”
A few bad apples or a systemic problem?
The committee’s investigation continued Wednesday with a similarly bipartisan grilling of Dr. David Morens, the Fauci adviser, who was earlier placed on administrative leave amid concerns about federal records violations.
In one of 30,000 pages of emails obtained by the committee through a subpoena, Dr. Morens wrote in February 2021: “i learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear after i am foia’d but before the search starts, so i think we are all safe. Plus i deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to gmail.”
During Wednesday’s hearing, Dr. Morens said he didn’t mean to do anything improper, describing his main motivation as helping Dr. Daszak, a close friend who was facing death threats. He also repeatedly apologized, saying, “I can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.”
An HHS spokesperson declined to comment on personnel matters but said in a statement to the Monitor: “HHS is committed to the letter and spirit of the Freedom of Information Act and adherence to Federal records management requirements. It is HHS policy that all personnel conducting business for, and on behalf of, HHS refrain from using personal email accounts to conduct HHS business.”
Committee members don’t see eye to eye on everything, and other hearings have grown contentious. While Democratic members commend the investigations into Dr. Daszak and Dr. Morens, they say that at times the committee’s work has seemed to go down rabbit holes.
“It has a valuable oversight function in these two instances,” says Democratic Rep. Deborah Ross of North Carolina. “But if you take the body of the committee’s work, I wouldn’t give it an A.”
Democrats have framed the issue as a couple of bad apples in an otherwise valuable scientific enterprise. They repeatedly emphasize that no proof has emerged that U.S.-funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology led to the pandemic, though their minority staff report acknowledges that WIV has withheld lab notebooks and other related records.
Republicans see more systemic problems in the federal grant review process and are concerned about whether the National Institutes of Health and especially the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which Dr. Fauci oversaw for many years, are conducting enough oversight for research that involves pathogens with pandemic potential.
How the COVID-19 pandemic started, another senior GOP aide says, remains “the public health question of our generation.”
Getting answers will require bipartisanship, according to Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees these agencies.
“It cannot be seen as simply attempting to score political points,” says the Washington congresswoman, who led much of the work in the last Congress to probe COVID-19 origins while in the GOP minority and has continued her investigation as chair. “It really is about accountability on behalf of the American people.”
