Hawley Reintroduces bill requiring Biden to declassify Wuhan lab leak intelligence

WASHINGTON — Today U.S. Senators Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Mike Braun (R-Ind.) reintroduced the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023, requiring the Biden administration to declassify intelligence related to any potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and the origins of the Covid pandemic.

The Department of Energy recently concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic most likely arose from a lab leak, according to a classified intelligence report provided to the White House and certain members of Congress.

“For nearly three years, anyone asking whether COVID-19 originated as a lab leak outbreak was silenced and branded as a conspiracy theorist. Now these prudent skeptics stand vindicated. The Biden administration must immediately declassify all intelligence reports pertaining to the origins of COVID-19 and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The American people deserve to know the truth,” said Senator Hawley.

“The Biden administration has called the lab leak theory a conspiracy theory from the beginning, and has only started to publicly admit they were wrong as the evidence becomes overwhelming. This bill passed the Senate unanimously in 2021, and since then the Biden administration has continued to keep information about COVID’s origins secret. The American people deserve transparency, free from government censors or media spin. It’s time to declassify everything we know about COVID’s origins and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, now,” said Senator Braun.

Senators Hawley and Braun’s COVID-19 Origin Act of 2021 passed the Senate unanimously in May 2021.

In March 2020, Senator Hawley was the first member of Congress to call for an international investigation into China’s cover-up of the spread of coronavirus and, in April 2020, introduced legislation to allow American citizens to sue the Chinese government for damages.