Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said the National Institutes of Health partnered with Wuhan Institute of Virology to propose creating a "highly transmissible" form of coronavirus.
Paul, a severe critic of former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, took to social media to expose what he said is new information about COVID-19's beginning.
"Newly obtained documents confirm yet again Fauci lied about COVID," Paul posted Tuesday on X. "Fauci's NIH lab was a partner with Wuhan on a proposal to engineer a highly transmissible coronavirus in 2018. But he wasn't alone, 15 government agencies knew about it and said nothing. Americans deserve answers."
NIAID is one of the 27 institutes and centers that constitute the NIH, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Paul, in a Fox News opinion column, wrote that "my investigation has recently discovered government officials from 15 federal agencies knew in 2018 that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was trying to create a coronavirus like COVID-19."
The initiative was called the DEFUSE project, according to Paul. It was proposed by Peter Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. NIAID was listed as a participant in the initial project pitch.
"Disturbingly, not one of these 15 agencies spoke up to warn us that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been pitching this research," Paul wrote, The Western Journal reported. "Not one of these agencies warned anyone that this Chinese lab had already put together plans to create such a virus."
Paul said that officials at the agencies now are stonewalling and refuse to release any information on the research.
"For years, I have been fighting to obtain records from dozens of federal agencies relating to the origins of COVID-19 and the DEFUSE project," Paul wrote in his column. "Under duress, the administration finally released documents that show that the DEFUSE project was pitched to at least 15 agencies in January 2018."
Paul again targeted Fauci, whom the senator says knew about the DEFUSE project from the start.
"Not surprising to some of us, Dr. Anthony Fauci's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) was not only briefed on Wuhan's desire to create this virus, NIAID was actually listed as a participant in the initial DEFUSE pitch. Fauci's Rocky Mountain Lab was named as a partner alongside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the proposal," Paul wrote.
Fauci has refuted claims he lied about NIH being linked to such research, telling Paul during a July 2021 hearing the lawmaker does "not know what" he is "talking about," The National Desk reported.
Paul said that besides 15 federal agencies, investigators Daszak, Ralph Baric, Ian Lipkin, and scientists at NIAID's Rocky Mountain Lab all knew of the Wuhan lab's desire to "create a coronavirus with a furin cleavage site, a virus pre-adapted for human transmission."