Rand Paul Requested Coronavirus Documents from 8 Federal Agencies and Received ‘Virtually Nothing’

(INSET: Sen. Rand Paul) Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy a
Shawn Thew, Greg Nash-Pool/Getty Images
Hannah Knudsen

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has requested documents related to the Chinese coronavirus from eight federal agencies but has received “virtually nothing,” he announced on Thursday.

“It’s absolutely outrageous that I’ve sent over 25 letters to more than 8 federal agencies requesting documents related to COVID and received virtually nothing,” Paul lamented, noting that he has also asked four Senate Democrat Committee Chairs to sign letters requesting the documents “and so far none have”:

Paul’s revelation comes days after the news of a U.S. Energy Department classified intelligence report, which found that the virus likely stemmed from a lab leak in Wuhan, China, as Republican lawmakers have long suspected.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

The new report highlights how different parts of the intelligence community have arrived at disparate judgments about the pandemic’s origin. The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory.

Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided.

Paul has long called for investigations into the coronavirus, warning last year that Dr. Anthony Fauci’s retirement would not stop a “full-throated investigation” into the origins of the virus.

“He will be asked to testify under oath regarding any discussions he participated in concerning the lab leak,” Paul warned in August:

That warning came months ahead of a March 5 memo sent to members of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, which found that “Fauci ‘prompted’ the drafting of a publication that would ‘disprove’ the lab leak theory, the authors of this paper skewed available evidence to achieve that goal, and Dr. Jeremy Farrar went uncredited despite significant involvement.”

Notably, Fauci, who publicly dismissed the lab leak theory early on in the pandemic, went on to cite this study from the White House podium.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has also drawn attention to the lack of answers, noting that China has continued to cover up its role in the pandemic.

“The Chinese Communist Party destroyed evidence so there may never be a ‘smoking gun,'” Cotton said in response to a New York Times article. “But all the available evidence points to a lab leak. There’s a reason why the CCP covered this up”:

The Republican-led House on Friday voted unanimously to declassify information regarding the origins of the coronavirus.

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