CINCINNATI — Six years after COVID-19 upended daily life around the world, questions about how the virus originated and how it was managed remain unanswered for many Americans.
Former Ohio Congressman Brad Wenstrup — a military veteran, physician and former chair of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic — said he believes the virus came from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, not a wet market, as was originally reported.
"There are a lot of forensics, some of it's classified, that would indicate that it came from a lab," Wenstrup said. "But listen, China is never going to come forward and spill that information to the world. They're never going to come out and say it happened here. I believe personally, with all I've looked into this, it was accidental, but I do believe it happened and came from the lab. Because we've never found this virus in nature."
Wenstrup also serves as a volunteer on the president's Intelligence Advisory Board. He said that in the years leading up to the pandemic, the leader of a company called EcoHealth Alliance asked the Department of Defense for funding for gain-of-function research.
"They said it's too dangerous. Too risky. We will not support it," Wenstrup said. "But then he goes over to NIH and Dr. Fauci signs the very grant that allows him to do that."
WCPO asked whether the United States was subsidizing that research in China.
WATCH: Wenstrup sits down with WCPO 9 anchor Tanya O'Rourke
"We were subsidizing gain-of-function research — that's the creating of new pathogens in a less-than-safe lab in China," Wenstrup said.
EcoHealth Alliance denies any wrongdoing, but the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has since cut off all funding to the company for five years for lack of proper research oversight.
"They were doing the very type of research that can create a virus like COVID-19," Wenstrup said. "And they were doing that in Wuhan, China, where the pandemic started."
Wenstrup said documents released by Tulsi Gabbard before she left her position as Director of National Intelligence show that people inside U.S. intelligence agencies faced retaliation "if they brought forward scientific information that was saying that it came from the lab."
Many of those documents originated from Wenstrup's subcommittee.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, who served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, maintains there is no scientific evidence that COVID-19 was created in a lab.
Wenstrup said he thinks President Joe Biden's pardon of Fauci was connected to the findings.
"It's all the things involved with COVID that we should have great concern about what was happening under Dr. Fauci's watch. It isn't all necessarily him, but those that were working with and for him as well," Wenstrup said.
On the release of the documents, Wenstrup acknowledged the reaction may be mixed.
"I would imagine for some people it's going to make them angry. Angry because it doesn't fit the narrative that they like," Wenstrup said. "But I think it's a great benefit to the country. We've got to correct our mistakes."
Wenstrup said another pandemic will come one day, and the United States must understand what it did right and wrong to be prepared. He is encouraging the public to read the unclassified report and draw their own conclusions. It is available at this link.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
