WASHINGTON, D.C.– Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, today released the following statement on reports that the U.S. Department of Energy believes a lab leak was the likely origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“For over a year, anyone who suggested that COVID-19 may have leaked from a lab was labeled as a conspiracy theorist.
“As evidence clearly mounts in favor of the lab-leak hypothesis, the American people deserve complete transparency from the federal government on the origins of COVID-19. That means this administration must declassify all the relevant intelligence – protecting for sources and methods – surrounding the pandemic’s origins, and provide information as to who was advising the members of the Intelligence Community who have dismissed or downplayed the concept of a lab leak. We must also take concrete steps to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for their lack of transparency surrounding COVID-19 by passing my bill to impose sanctions and other restrictions on CCP-affiliated scientists until the Party allows a transparent, international investigation into the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“In order to prevent the next pandemic, we have to know how this one began. The administration must move with a sense of urgency and use every tool at its disposal to ensure we understand the origins of COVID-19.”
