Senator Rand Paul grilled the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator, Samantha Power, during a Wednesday Senate Foreign Relations Hearing, accusing her of stonewalling information on the origins of COVID-19.
Paul asked Power if USID had funded coronavirus research in Wuhan, China.
Power immediately denied any gain of function research that took place in Wuhan.
“That is not the question,” Paul said, noting that massive grants totaling 200 million dollars were given to researchers in China under the PREDICT program.
Paul continued:
“In September of last year, I wrote Ms. Power or USAID a request for records from the PREDICT program. These are not classified. These are simply records of scientific research,” he said.
“And we want to read the grants to find out what they were doing and whether the research was dangerous or not. The response I got from your agency was USAID will not be providing any documents at this time,” Paul added.
“They’re just unwilling to give documents on scientific grant proposals. We’re paying for it. They’re asking for $745 million more in money, and we get no response,” Paul went on to emphasize
“20 million people died around the world. You’re supposed to be an agency that cares about the death of people around the world,” Paul blasted.
“We, you know, talk about starvation and famine, and 20 million people died from a virus. And you won’t give us the basic information about what grants you’re funding around the world and who you’re funding,” the Senator continued.
“The American people think this, that because you won’t respond because you respond with a non-response, that you have something to hide,” Paul continued.
“I don’t know if you have anything to hide or not. I want to see every grant proposal that had to do with coronaviruses that went to China from the U.S. government, from all facets of the U.S. government, and every bit of the Biden administration is stonewalling us and will not give us the information…You are not being honest,” Paul asserted.
Watch:
Rnd Paul noted in a press release:
“This isn’t just a USAID problem of concealing information; this is a Biden administration-wide problem in which there is a concerted effort to withhold critical information from Congress on the origins of COVID-19.”
Paul also listed those who have failed to reply to requests for information from the Senators, which included:
Secretary of State Antony Blinken
Secretary of the Department of Human Health Services Xavier Becerra
Secretary of the Department of Defense Lloyd Austin
Acting Director of the National Institutes of Health Lawrence Tabak
Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development Samantha Power
In March, Paul vowed to find the paper trail for the origins of the COVID lab leak.
Paul also weighed in on the involvement of former National Institution of Allergy and Infectious Disease Dr. Anthony Fauci, who “lied to us” about it.
“I’m 100% confident that Fauci lied to us and that they were doing dangerous research there,” he said at the time.
“I would say all of the evidence I have seen so far points towards it coming from a lab. And it all adds together, and proximity makes a difference,” Paul added.
“The fact that the lab is within walking distance of where most of the coronaviruses of the world, the largest collection of coronaviruses in the world is within walking distance of where this started — yes, there’s too many coincidences to add up,” he said.
READ: Rand Paul: “I Would Never Vaccinate My Children against COVID”
