FBI and State Department miss congressional deadline for comments on COVID-19 origin
Misty Severi
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken and FBI Director Christopher Wray missed the House deadline to provide documents and answer questions about the origins of COVID-19.
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY), and Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), the chairman of the select subcommittee on the COVID-19 pandemic, sent a letter to Blinken and Wray in February seeking answers about the Chinese Communist Party’s alleged cover-up of the virus’s origins.
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The representatives gave the agencies a deadline of March 13 to answer questions and present the requested documents.
“The origins of the disease that has taken the lives of more than six million people is still unknown,” Comer and Wenstrup said in the letter. “Uncovering the truth about the origins of COVID-19 is vital to U.S. national security, critical to the prevention of future pandemics, and will bring some semblance of closure to the families of those who lost loved ones during the pandemic. Your documents and testimony are essential to informing the Committee about what the U.S. government knew regarding the origins of COVID-19 and when the government knew it.”
A subcommittee spokesperson confirmed to the Washington Examiner that they had not received the documents at the time of publishing.
“We have not received documents at this time but we are in communication with the agencies about the Chairmen’s request and expect compliance,” the spokesperson said.
A State Department spokesperson told Punchbowl News that the administration is using its resources to “find out what happened” and share the findings with the public.
“President Biden has directed every element of our intelligence community to put the effort and resources behind getting to the bottom of the origins of COVID-19,” the spokesperson said.
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The FBI has not commented on the documents, but Wray said the FBI believes the virus “most likely” originated from a lab leak in Wuhan, China. The Department of Energy has agreed that the lab leak likely caused the virus but claimed it was for different reasons than the FBI. The CIA has not released its conclusions so far.
Sarah Westwood contributed to this article.