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Senate Republicans Plan Coronavirus Probe — with a Focus on China: Politico

Politico

The Senate's main oversight committee is beginning a wide-ranging probe into the origins of and response to the coronavirus pandemic, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson said in an interview on Monday, Politico reports.

Johnson (R-Wis.) said his committee is "going to conduct oversight on this thing in its entirety." He listed several elements of the probe: Why the national stockpile wasn't "better prepared," why pharmaceutical ingredients and medical devices are manufactured overseas, the World Health Organization's response to the virus and how the virus spread in the first place.

But it’s not clear how closely President Donald Trump’s performance is going to come under the microscope from the GOP-led panel, with Johnson and other Republicans mainly focused on China and the WHO.

"Where did this all start from? Was this transferred animal to human? Was this from a lab in China? Might have been the best of intentions trying to come up with the different cures, with the different therapies for the coronavirus in general," Johnson said, echoing some conservative theories. "We need to know what role WHO might have had in trying to cover this thing up."

The United States' testing system was caught flatfooted by the coronavirus, and Johnson said faster international information would have helped develop "an accurate lab test sooner than we did."

Johnson also said he had tasked Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) with spearheading the investigation into the WHO, which has come under relentless attack from GOP lawmakers and the White House for not doing more to draw out accurate information from China at the onset of the virus. The two senators spoke about the probe on Monday.

Scott is a noted China hawk and said in a separate interview that when it comes to the coronavirus “we can't trust communist China, we've learned we can't trust the WHO because they lie to us.” He said he would delve into what the WHO's plan was, when it knew how the virus was transmitted and when the organization grew skeptical of China's numbers showing the virus was contained.

"Let's create a new organization if this is important to us because it clearly didn't work," Scott said of the WHO. Republicans have suggested it should be defunded and that its director should resign; some Trump aides are also weighing creation of a WHO alternative. Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said he believes the U.S. will continue its funding.

House Democrats have vowed stiff oversight of Trump's handling of the pandemic, and there are even some bipartisan bills to establish a 9/11-style commission to investigate the government's missteps.

Democrats have also declined to embrace the GOP critiques of the WHO, and instead have focused their rage on Trump for downplaying the virus’ impacts over the past two months.

"Lack of action, where the president was basically telling us all that everything was going to be fine, was two months that we needed to get ready," said Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.). "And we’re paying the price now, people are paying the price right now."

 

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