'It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out the likelihood of Wuhan lab leak': Lindsey Graham leads Republicans fury over origin of COVID 'cover-up' as Tom Cotton demands Fauci 'come clean' and Rand Paul says the doctor has committed PERJURY
Lindsey Graham has said 'you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes' to conclude that COVID-19 escaped from the Wuhan laboratory as he called for international sanctions against China for blocking a full inquiry.
The theory of a 'lab leak' was initially dismissed by scientists, who felt it more likely that COVID-19 was transferred from animals to humans, as SARS was before it.
Donald Trump and his supporters, however, have long backed the idea of the virus originating in a Wuhan lab. That idea is now gaining traction.
On Wednesday, Graham led the chorus of Republican voices hitting out at the COVID 'cover-up'.
'You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this out if the first cases of COVID-19 occurred in November with lab workers. Doesn't that make it more likely than not that the source of the virus was in the lab, not a wet market?' said Graham, speaking on Fox News on Wednesday.
Graham on Wednesday said you did not need to be Sherlock Holmes to believe 'lab leak' theory
Republican Senator Rand Paul believes Dr Fauci committed perjury and should be fired for lying to the American people about giving funding to the Wuhan Virology Institute
'So, I think it's becoming increasingly clear we haven't found an animal yet that is a good host for the virus.
'If the first cases involve lab workers and move on is most likely, they got it in the lab.'
Graham spoke as some within the Republican Party are accusing Dr Anthony Fauci of deliberately covering up what was known about the origins of the virus.
On Wednesday Fauci was again before a Congressional committee to discuss the virus, and was asked again about U.S. taxpayer money being spent on the Wuhan lab.
Fauci said that the lab was given $600,000 over five years, but that the money was not for gain of function research. He said the work published as a result of the U.S. funding did not show experiments on gain of function.
Pressed by Louisiana Senator John Kennedy on whether the scientists could have carried out secret experiments with the U.S. funding, and not disclosed the results, Fauci admitted there were no guarantees.
Senator Rand Paul, who has publicly sparred with Fauci twice in Senate hearings about the pandemic, said on Wednesday he believes Fauci committed perjury and should be fired for lying to the American people about giving funding to the Wuhan Virology Institute.
His GOP colleague Tom Cotton has also said Fauci needs to 'come clean' about whether US taxpayer money was used to fund 'gain of function research', which involves modifying a virus to make it more infectious among humans.
Scores of Republicans have called for Fauci to be fired or resign after his u-turns on COVID and its origins.
His GOP colleague Tom Cotton has also said Fauci needs to 'come clean' about whether US taxpayer money was used to fund 'gain of function research', which involves modifying a virus to make it more infectious among humans
President Biden has now called for the intelligence services to redouble their efforts in investigating the two scenarios that it either was transmitted between humans and animals or was leaked from the lab.
'Absolutely, he lied to the American people,' Paul told Newsmax on Tuesday night when asked if Fauci lied during a Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing earlier this month.
He was referring to the gain of functions research conducted by Dr. Shi Zhengli in the lab at the center of theories that COVID came from a leak.
There are questions over whether it was funded directly by the National Institutes of Health from a US taxpayer-funded $600,000 grant.
On May 12, Paul asked Fauci during a Senate hearing if he still supported NIH funding of the lab in Wuhan.
'Senator Paul, with all due respect, you are entirely, entirely, and completely incorrect,' a frustrated Fauci responded.
'The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.'
Cotton told Fox News : 'I hope Tony Fauci gives some straight answers today for once'
Paul said: 'In her paper, she [Dr. Zhengli] actually thanked Dr. Fauci and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is a part of National Institutes of Health (NIH) that Dr. Fauci runs.
'It's listed at the end of the paper. This paper was fined by NIAID research and it lists a ten digit number that identifies the research money she got from from the United States.
'Was it gain of function?'
Arkansas Senator Cotton told Fox News: 'I hope Tony Fauci gives some straight answers today for once.'
'They need to come clean with the American people, they need to stop playing word games,' Cotton continued.
'They need to explain why they funded that research apparently in violation of at least the spirit, if not the letter, of an Obama White House directive.
House Rep. Warren Davidson, a Republican from Ohio, on Tuesday proposed the 'FIRED Act' - whose acronym stands for 'Fauci Incompetence Requires Early Dismissal.'
House Rep. Warren Davidson (seen left in December), a Republican from Ohio, on Tuesday proposed the 'FIRED Act' - whose acronym stands for 'Fauci Incompetence Requires Early Dismissal.' Dr Anthony Fauci (right) on Tuesday appeared before a House committee to discuss the budget
'Dr. Fauci is at odds with the [Centers for Disease Control],' Davidson told Fox News.
'He has repeatedly put political science ahead of the science on COVID-19.'
Earlier on Tuesday, Fauci defended the United States' 'modest' and 'very respectable' funding of the Wuhan laboratory - which is now at the center of speculation as a possible source of the COVID-19 virus.
Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), appeared before a Congressional budget committee on Tuesday.
He defended allocating $600,000 to a group called EcoHealth Alliance, which then paid the Wuhan Institute of Virology to study the risk that bat coronaviruses could infect humans.
Under the terms of the funding, the money could not be spend on 'gain of function' research - a controversial practice which explores how viruses mutate and become more transmissible or more dangerous.
Fauci said the research was essential, pointing out that the SARS outbreak in the early 2000s was eventually traced back to bats.
'I would have been almost a dereliction of our duty if we didn't study this, and the only way you can study these things is you've got to go where the action is,' he said.
'You don't want to study bats in Fairfax County, Virginia, to find out what the animal-human interface is that might lead to a jumping of species.
'So we had a modest collaboration with very respectable Chinese scientists who were world experts on coronavirus, and we did that through a sub-grant from a larger grant to EcoHealth.'
Fauci added: 'The larger grant was about $600,000 over a period of five years. So it was a modest amount. The purpose of it was to study the animal-human interface, to do surveillance and to determine if these bat viruses were even capable of' infecting humans.
Francis Collins, the director of NIH, had said earlier in the hearing that the American taxpayer money that went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology was not approved to conduct gain of function research.
