Ernst Cracks Down on Cover-up of True COVID-19 Origins

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, secured new confirmation from a CIA whistleblower that there is evidence government officials covered up COVID’s true origins and made excuses for China’s likely involvement.

After years of leading investigations into the origins of the COVID-19 virus, Ernst put a longtime CIA employee, with firsthand knowledge of the intelligence community’s response to the pandemic, on the record about government suppression of origin theories and bureaucratic flaws that enabled the cover-up.

Watch Ernst’s full line of questioning here.

“I’ve long warned about a potential government cover-up of the truth, which our brave witness has confirmed to us today,” said Senator Ernst. “I haven’t backed down from fighting for more information on the true COVID origins, and yet Congress is still here, six years later, begging agencies to share answers and for committees to make relevant documents public…There are a lot of U.S. secrets and secret keepers, without a lot of explanation. It’s time for the secrets to end. Our constituents deserve to know the truth about COVID-19 origins.”

Background:

Ernst has long fought to stop tax dollars from being sent overseas for risky research and to secure answers on the questionable circumstances surrounding the U.S. government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2021, Ernst requested the Health and Human Services (HHS) OIG investigation of EcoHealth Alliance’s experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which found the group’s work with the Wuhan Institute resulted in enhanced coronaviruses and did not comply with federal reporting requirements. An Ernst-requested investigation also exposed how EcoHealth sent over $1 million U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for risky experiments on bat coronaviruses. These efforts also led to HHS defunding EcoHealth and permanently debarring the Wuhan Institute of Virology from receiving taxpayer dollars used for research of pandemic potential.

Ernst authored the provision in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act directing the DoD OIG to conduct an audit of Pentagon funding of risky research in China and other foreign nations. She is demanding that the redacted findings of the investigation be made public. In her $2 trillion blueprint to slash waste in Washington, Ernst pointed to the millions being sent to China for secretive risky research.

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