Scalise and Comer Blast Democrats for Refusing to Investigate COVID-19 Origins

WASHINGTON—Republican Whip and Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis Ranking Member Steve Scalise (R-La.) and House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.) today blasted Chairman Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) for officially refusing to investigate the origins of COVID-19.

“In a Friday evening news dump, two of Speaker Pelosi’s top lieutenants, Chairs Clyburn and Maloney made it official—they refuse to confront Communist China and are afraid of what might be revealed by an investigation into the origins of COVID-19. Both Chairs made clear what we knew from the beginning: their only goal is to cover for President Biden’s failures and continue partisan witch hunts into the Trump Administration to deflect attention away from their missteps. Democrats’ decision to shield Communist China from scrutiny is concerning yet unsurprising. Their obsessive disdain for President Trump is not an excuse for their refusal to get to the bottom of what happened in Wuhan. It’s a dereliction of duty. Democrats are simply putting partisan politics over America’s security.

“Instead of defending the Wuhan Lab and undermining calls to investigate early reports that the virus started in that lab, as the Democrats continue to do, Republicans will continue to press onward in our calls to investigate the truth into the origins of the coronavirus. If COVID-19 started in the Wuhan lab and Communist China covered it up, then they are responsible for the deaths of 600,000 Americans. The American people deserve to know the truth, even if Washington Democrats refuse to seek it.”

On Friday evening, Clyburn and Maloney wrote to Scalise and Comer notifying them of their intent not to use the resources of their panels to investigate the origins of the coronavirus. Instead, they made it clear their committees only plan to continue their partisan investigations into the previous administration.

Scalise and Comer called for an investigation into COVID-19 origins on May 24, 2021 and June 3, 2021. In their request, they also called for Dr. Anthony Fauci to testify before the panels considering his recently revealed emails indicated the virus may have originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and appears to have been engineered.