I wasn’t called on at the State Department briefing today. But I still got lied to...
USAID has quietly cut off its dangerous program collecting viruses, but it is continuing to hide how the work it funded could have caused the pandemic.
I wasn’t called on at the State Department briefing today.
But I still got lied to.
About myself.
State Department spokesperson Matt Miller called on lots of people, but not me.
After the briefing I went up and told Miller that I hope that he will call on me in the future.
He said: “I’ve taken your questions many times.”
I replied: “Actually you’ve only taken one”.
I could have added that he immediately cut that question off, and that the written response he promised ended up being worse than useless.
In June, after the Sunday Times had a piece about a dangerous lab work program that happened in Wuhan sourced to State Department officials, I asked “Can you confirm for the record... that PREDICT [run by USAID] funded that program?" He wouldn’t answer, claiming he was unfamiliar with the Sunday Times article, which was irrelevant even if true and quickly moved on to another reporter.
The paragraphs of vacuousness I got in an email from the State Department also didn’t answer the question. I emailed back: “Well, for one, I was asking for confirmation that USAID funded the 2015 Nature Medicine article I referenced: ‘A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence.’ So, for starters: Can you please confirm that fact?”
Of course I never received a response.
All this is especially timely because The BMJ just reported:
A flagship project for the controversial practice of hunting viruses among wildlife in South East Asia, Africa, and Latin America … is being quietly dropped by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) after private and bipartisan criticism over the safety of such research, The BMJ has found.
And there’s a litany of questions that desperately need to be asked — and answered.
And I’ve asked some at previous briefings, below. I hope to ask more soon.
And:
I wasn’t called on at the State Department briefing today. But I still got lied to...
Thank you for relentlessly pursuing the truth Sam. When you're lied to, so are the American taxpayers who at a basic level, fund these dangerous and/or illegal activities.
It sounds like your questions, albeit unanswered, may have stimulates some needed consternation behind the scenes, leading to the cessation of dangerous activities.
If so, it's too bad you don't get credit... but we know you're on the beat.
Also, whenever a problematic government program (COINTELPRO, TIPS, etc.) is "discontinued," I always wonder whether it has simply been renamed and moved to another agency. I am not saying this cynically, and I'm sure I don't need to urge you to wonder, but gotta always add that caveat.
Keep on keepin' on, brother.