The U.S. Senate has unanimously passed a bill that seeks to require President Joe Biden’s administration declassify all intelligence relating to the origin of COVID-19, including information about what happened at the Wuhan laboratory at the start of the pandemic.
Republican Sens. Josh Hawley (Miss.) and Mike Braun (Ind.) submitted their proposal, known as the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2021, to require that the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) declassify to Americans U.S. intelligence on the alleged links between China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and the origins of the CCP virus last month. The bill was passed by unanimous consent.
Hawley told the Senate floor on Wednesday that the bill gives an opportunity to the American public to evaluate the evidence for themselves, adding that this is only the first step.
“They deserve it. Their government owes it to them, and it’s time to act,” Hawley said. “And the American people deserve something else. They deserve to have this government hold accountable that nation which started this virus, whose lies about this virus turned it into a global pandemic, whose lies about this virus prevented our country and many others from being able to address it effectively in time—of course I’m talking about China.”
If enacted, the documents that could be declassified could pertain to activities performed by the Wuhan Institute of Virology with or on behalf of the People’s Liberation Army, coronavirus research or other related activities performed at the Wuhan Institute of Virology prior to the outbreak of COVID–19, and information about researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who fell ill in Autumn 2019.
The DNI will then be required to present a report to Congress containing the declassified information within 90 days of the bill’s potential enactment.