US was double billed tens of millions of dollars in grants to Wuhan labs: report
By: Josh Christenson
March 13, 2023: The US government may have paid twice for grants it doled out to fund research at labs in Wuhan, China, according to a newly launched federal probe that found tens of millions of dollars in potentially fraudulent payments.
The “risky” projects bankrolled by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the US Agency for International Development would have helped pay for medical supplies, equipment, travel expenses and salaries at the Wuhan labs, according to CBS News, which broke the story Monday.
Among them was the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), where taxpayers funded controversial gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses that federal officials now admit may have led to the COVID-19 pandemic.
An investigator hired by Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) first discovered the allegedly fraudulent funding from NIH and USAID, CBS News reported, and her findings prompted an internal probe by an inspector general.
“What I’ve found so far is evidence that points to double billing, potential theft of government funds,” Diane Cutler, who said she reviewed 50,000 documents on the matter, told “CBS News Mornings.”
“It is concerning, especially since it involves dangerous pathogens and risky research.”
“What I’ve found so far is evidence that points to double billing, potential theft of government funds,” Diane Cutler told CBS News of the US funding to Wuhan labs.
Image Above: LinkedIn / Diane Cutler
Image Above: Dr. Anthony Fauci has firmly resisted theories that NIH funding might have contributed to a lab leak of COVID-19. (CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
The outlet cited anonymous sources who did not dispute the report and said “tens of millions of dollars could be involved.”
Neither USAID nor an acting general counsel for its inspector general’s office responded to a request for comment.
“Americans deserve the truth, especially if our government had a hand in funding the creation of the coronavirus. I am demanding transparency and accountability for the misuse of taxpayer funds. This probe is a step in the right direction. We must follow the money,” Marshall told The Post.
A source familiar with the investigation by Marshall’s office told The Post that the cost of the fraudulent payments likely exceeds $40 million, but that NIH and USAID record redactions have obscured the true number.
“I think there’s 1.1 million reasons that American taxpayers should care” about the funding, the 62-year-old Marshall, who wants a 9/11-style commission on the findings, also told CBS.
“You’ll have a plane crashes. We want to find out why the plane crashes. We go to any lengths to do that. And the hope is we don’t have another plane crash for the same reason.”
Image Above: An investigator hired by Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) first discovered the allegedly fraudulent funding from NIH and USAID. (CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
The probe comes as two federal agencies — the FBI and Energy Department — have found the coronavirus pandemic most likely originated from a lab leak in Wuhan, where SARS-CoV-2 emerged.
The House on Friday unanimously passed a bill, already approved with unanimous consent in the Senate, to force the White House to declassify intelligence reports on the origins of COVID-19. President Biden has yet to sign it.
“I haven’t made that decision yet,” Biden, who cannot bock the measure with a veto given the unanimous bipartisan support for it, told reporters before leaving for his Delaware home last weekend.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has firmly resisted theories that NIH funding might have contributed to COVID-19.
He insisted on Sunday that the virus was caused by a “natural occurrence” — even if it came from a lab.
“A lab leak could be that someone was out in the wild, maybe looking for different types of viruses in bats, got infected, went into a lab and was being studied in the lab and then came out of the lab,” Fauci, 82, told CNN anchor Jim Acosta.
“But if that’s the definition of a lab leak Jim, then that’s still a natural occurrence,” he insisted.
Image Above: Fauci and then-NIH director Francis Collins “prompted” a scientific study to debunk the lab leak theory. (CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Fauci and then-NIH director Francis Collins, 72, also “prompted” a scientific study in the early months of the pandemic to debunk the lab leak theory, according to newly released emails.
Robert Redfield, 71, who directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during the Trump administration, told Congress last week that Fauci “sidelined” him for suggesting COVID-19 came from a lab.
“This was an a priori decision that there’s one point of view that we’re going to put out there, and anyone who doesn’t agree with it is going to be sidelined,” Redfield, 71, told members of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. “And as I say, I was only the CDC director, and I was sidelined.”
But Biden’s former chief medical adviser dismissed Redfield’s claims as well the following day.
“He is totally and unequivocally incorrect in what he’s saying, that I excluded him,” Fauci told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto. “It’s really unfortunate that in a public setting, like the hearing, that Dr. Redfield made that absolutely incorrect statement.”
Source: New York Post
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