Republican Senator Joni Ernst has successfully encouraged the Office of the Inspector General (IG) to begin an audit on behalf of the Department of Defense (DoD), as part of a broader investigation into whether domestic funding is being diverted to Chinese research laboratories.
The audit was spurred by a January 25 letter written by the Iowa lawmaker and former Wisconsin Representative Mike Gallagher, who resigned from Congress on Saturday. As part of a provision the pair secured in the 2024 fiscal year National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), they requested information from the DoD on any funding provided to the People’s Republic of China or its affiliates for research activities relevant to the NDAA reporting requirement.
They chastised the Biden administration for “financing risky research around the world” at taxpayers’ expense, purporting that “tens of millions of DoD dollars” have been given to China—in turn leading to what they claim are national security risks, notably after the COVID-19 pandemic and conversations of whether the virus emanated in a Wuhan lab.
“The Department of Defense should defend the nation, not support research with the potential to do us harm,” Ernst told Newsweek on Wednesday. “While bureaucrats are blindly giving away taxpayer funds, China doesn’t even have to steal our research. It’s clear Americans deserve a detailed inventory of all the dangerous dollars sent overseas, which is why I’ve launched an investigation to track down every cent.”
Newsweek reached out to DoD and the IG via email for comment.
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According to the IG’s response to the lawmakers, the audit “will determine the extent to which the DoD awarded federal funds directly or indirectly through grants, contracts, subgrants, subcontracts, or any other type of agreement or collaboration, during the 10-year period from 2014 through 2023, to Chinese research labs or to fund research or experiments in China or other foreign countries designed to enhance pathogens of pandemic potential.”
Ernst has investigated multiple U.S. government agencies in relation to the pandemic, including requesting the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) look closer into EcoHealth Alliance—a New York nonprofit found to have received grant funding to partner with the WIV to study bat coronaviruses, green-lighted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), then led by Dr. Anthony Fauci.
EcoHealth Alliance has received over $47 million from the Pentagon since 2008, according to federal open data source USA Spending.
Ernst referenced a January 2023 report published by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Office of the IG, which found “that EcoHealth did not ensure that subawards were compliant with Federal requirements, did not ensure compliance with subrecipient monitoring and reporting requirements, and did not comply with certain public disclosure requirements associated with reporting subaward funding.”
“In addition, EcoHealth did not always use its grant funds in accordance with Federal requirements, resulting in $89,171 in unallowable costs. These deficiencies occurred because NIH and EcoHealth did not follow established policies and procedures,” the report added.
Questions about the origins of COVID and the United States’ role in potentially aiding an adversary like the Communist Party of China (CCP) have also caused lawmakers to question U.S. policy in accordance with artificial intelligence (AI).
In January, Newsweek reported that chairs of two House committees and three subcommittees asked the National Science Foundation (NSF), which is a federal government agency, and the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) why they failed to pay attention to “concerning signs” over the Chinese-born scientist Song-Chun Zhu, who in November 2023 received over $30 million in U.S. grants to lead research into advanced A.I. that may have major military implications.
Questions about medicine, science and AI and China have made U.S. lawmakers apprehensive about the CCP taking the upper hand in these various sectors.
“We may never get answers about what really happened in Wuhan from Dr. Fauci, EcoHealth, or China, but this investigation enables us to pinpoint where another man-made pandemic could possibly originate and prevent that from happening,” Ernst said.
“As more evidence emerges that our own tax dollars are advancing the interests of our adversaries, it’s clear we need greater transparency and accountability of how, why, and especially where our money is going.”
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.