Wenstrup Requests Unredacted COVID-19 Origins Documents from HHS

WASHINGTON — Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) is requesting two, unredacted documents from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to further assist in the Select Subcommittee’s investigation into the origins of COVID-19 and the Communist Party of China’s cover up. While negotiating the upcoming testimony of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky, Chairman Wenstrup requested access to both documents, but HHS refused to comply.

Stonewalling legitimate Congressional oversight and withholding information about the origins of COVID-19 from the Select Subcommittee raises suspicions, is unwarranted, and appears to be a growing trend at HHS. Mounting declassified intelligence and scientific evidence supports that COVID-19 likely originated at a lab in Wuhan, China, which renders a thorough investigation into its inception essential to preventing a future pandemic.

“This stonewalling of legitimate Congressional oversight appears to be in line with the Department’s new stated position regarding Select Subcommittee requests. In case you were unaware, while negotiating Director Walensky’s upcoming testimony, the Department wrote that the negotiation was “counterproductive to the [S]elect [S]ubcommittee’s broader dealings with the Department.”  This is unacceptable and continued obstruction will not be tolerated,” wrote Chairman Wenstrup.

The Select Subcommittee is also requesting a transcribed interview with Dr. Ping Chen, a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases employee who was stationed in China and toured the WIV in 2017.

Read Chairman Wenstrup’s letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra here.

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