COVID-19 Transparency and Justice for the American People

Over the last year, many Americans and Oklahomans suffered during the coronavirus outbreak – from the loss of loved ones, businesses or employment, to spending months in lock down, away from family and friends. Fortunately, Operation Warp Speed helped deliver vaccines to Americans in record-time, resulting in some pre-pandemic normalcy. Yet, many questions remain unanswered about the origins of the virus, and China’s culpability or complacency in its spread.

As of June 2021, more than 600,000 Americans and over 4 million people worldwide have died as a result of the coronavirus. As the virus emerged in the United States, The Trump Administration launched an investigation to determine whether it originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China. On January 31, 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci was warned about the deadly virus and seemed to be taking those warnings seriously — at the same time he was publicly downplaying the notion of the virus being created in a lab, according to his emails. Unfortunately, as the pandemic continued into 2021, the Biden Administration shut down efforts to investigate possible connections between the origins of COVID-19 and the Wuhan Institute, even in the face of mounting evidence and unanswered questions.

As of today, the Administration has yet to take a single step to hold the China Communist Party accountable nor has a single Congressional hearing been held on the origins of COVID-19. In an effort to push for a hearing in Congress, I joined more than 200 of my House Republican colleagues and signed on to a letter calling for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to direct committee chairs to investigate the origins of the Coronavirus. When a foreign adversary is directly or indirectly responsible for the death of Americans, loss of jobs, businesses and our way of life, as your representative, I will work to do something about it.

House Republicans have laid out an eight-step plan to hold China accountable, in hopes that the rest of the world will follow. This plan consists of transparency and justice. This includes declassifying all information related to COVID-19, ensuring the United States no longer funds any functional research conducted in or with China, prohibiting National Institutes of Health funding to communist governments, and reforming the World Health Organization.

House Republicans are willing to use every authority to continue to investigate the virus’s origins, and to impose sanctions on senior Chinese officials, providing the American people an avenue to directly hold the Chinese government accountable for the loved ones they lost, and the economic devastation that the pandemic has caused.

More than 4 million people died worldwide, more than 600,000 Americans died, and over 400,000 businesses permanently closed due to China’s deception. Like all of you, I am deeply saddened by these numbers and the avoidable loss of life and loss of employment resulting from the CCP’s actions.

However, the next step should be to investigate the actions of the Chinese communist regime and its responsibility for the pandemic and demand justice. I will continue to fight for all Oklahomans and Americans.