Sen. Ron Johnson: The 'cover-ups' by Dr. Fauci and China have to end

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Sen. Ron Johnson: The COVID cover-ups have to end


Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., says he wants a nonpartisan investigation into COVID’s origins in China and the U.S. government’s knowledge of it.

Sen. Ron Johnson told Harris Faulkner on Friday that he believes China covered up the original cause of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Wisconsin Republican said the "American public deserves the truth" and accused Dr. Anthony Fauci of helping to "cover up" what happened at the Wuhan virology lab. 

The White House's John Kirby maintained Thursday there is "still no consensus" on the origin of COVID despite new reports, saying the intelligence community is still assessing information. 

DESANTIS SLAMS CHINA’S COVID-19 ‘COVER-UP’ IN NEW BOOK, SAYS US RESPONSE TO CCP A ‘MAJOR FAILURE’

SEN. RON JOHNSON: I've expressed my skepticism that there's really new intelligence, apparently, there is, that ought to be shared with the members of Congress. If they're concerned about how they gather the information, I can see where it might remain classified, but we have security clearances, we ought to see this. But, from my standpoint, it's been pretty obvious for quite some time that this was probably a manmade virus. It probably leaked out of the lab in Wuhan. You take a look at the fact that the Chinese government shut down travel from Wuhan to the rest of China, but allowed it to travel throughout the world so that the pandemic would spread. They're incredibly culpable. They've been covering up, Anthony Fauci has been covering up. The cover-ups have to end. The American public deserves the truth. The world deserves the truth on this.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. On Tuesday, Fauci and other health officials discussed the rollout of a vaccine shots while saying the shot could be similar to an annual flu shot.  (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

FBI Director Christopher Wray said the COVID-19 pandemic was likely caused by a lab leak in Wuhan, China.

"The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan," Wray told Fox News in an interview that aired Tuesday. "Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab." 

"I will just make the observation that the Chinese government, it seems to me, has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate the work here, the work that we're doing, the work that our U.S. government and close foreign partners are doing. And that's unfortunate for everybody," he added.

Wray's comments come after the Department of Energy has also recently assessed that the COVID-19 pandemic was likely caused by an accidental lab leak in China.

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