Activists with "Jail Fauci" T-Shirts Crash Hearing on Covid Origins. Representatives Bicker and Blame China While Minimizing Scrutiny to US Institutions.

Democrats act as though they didn't stall investigation. Republicans blame Democrats without invoking subpoena power. Witnesses blame China and minimize scrutiny of dangerous US lab work.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic held a hearing on Tuesday: “Investigating the Origins of COVID-19, Part 2: China and the Available Intelligence”. It was not an actual investigation, rather it just gave airing to views of different parts of US spook agencies, the “intelligence community” that all finger China and minimize scrutiny of US institutions.

We’ve had years of people saying ridiculous things in the name of “science”. Now we have people saying convenient things in the name of “intelligence” and “truth”.

There were serious problems with what was being said by most speakers. The only ones who came out looking good were some activists who crashed the hearing wearing “Jail Fauci” t-shirts. The activists are associated with the Citizens’ Covid Origin Inquiry — see the group’s website: CovidOrigins.org. One of the activists for a time ironically wore a “Jail Fauci” mask as well. (Disclosure: I have sat in on some of their meetings and they have linked to some of my pieces on their website.)

See my lengthy twitter thread for blow-by-blow of the hearing and C-SPAN video for the full hearing — you can see the citizens with their t-shirts in the background. (Note: the Congressional video of the hearing is from an angle that keeps the public out of the frame.)

Emily Kopp (with video clips) and Prof. Richard Ebright highlighted some of the more reasonable comments made by former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe: “[I]f...intelligence..supporting..lab leak…was placed side-by-side with…intelligence...pointing to…natural...'spillover'…lab leak side of..ledger would be long and overwhelming….”

And by David Feith: “Even without definitive proof that Covid resulted from a lab leak, the plausibility of a lab leak should be enough to generate dramatic public concern and policy innovation involving everything from gain-of function funding to laboratory safety standards…”

Feith has an interesting pedigree, he’s at a hawkish think tank, he used to be with the Wall Street Journal, which has been driving coverage since the Spring of 2021 and the collapse of the Daszak narrative. Most relevant, he was at State Department and apparently fingered the Wuhan Institute of Virology early on. He also is the son of the leading Iraq invasion propagandist Douglas Feith, who worked closely with Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney. He moralized about gain of function with minimal scrutiny to US, including US military lab work.

Indeed, virtually all had problems and contradictions. The thrust of the hearing was to blame China. Republicans blamed Democrats and Democrats blamed Trump — at least one Democrat even blamed Trump for being too cordial with China.

Feith actually stated: “some colleagues who warned against highlighting China’s gain-of-function research, lest it draw attention to the U.S. government’s own role in such research and otherwise open a ‘Pandora’s Box.’”

This is continuing. The US government’s role in such research is continuing to be ignored, as is the US role in effectively provoking China into advancing their own dangerous lab work.

Notably, Ratcliffe argued that the “intel” agencies were reluctant to find lab origins for political reasons. But it was pegged to not wanting to upset China, when a far more plausible explanation is that they didn’t want to draw attention to dangerous US lab work.

One Representative claimed that Congress has called for the declassification of all intel on Covid origins. That’s just false, as I’ve reported. Only intel fingering the WIV is to be declassified.

Republicans blame Democrats without invoking subpoena power as I highlighted in 2021. Again, this effectively keeps the blame on China and minimizes scrutinizing US institutions and effective biowarfare.

In the lead up to the hearing, Axios (“Senate COVID origins report details lab leak theory”) and other media reported on “Muddy Waters" document written by Robert Kadlec, who Whitney Webb early on in the pandemic called the “Head of the Hydra”.