The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said during a Senate questioning that $600,000 was donated to the WIV in the span of five years, but documents obtained by conservative activist group Judicial Watch revealed that the actual figure was $826,277.
"These new documents show that funding for the Wuhan Institute was greater than the public has been told," said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, which uncovered the discrepancy by using a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. "That it has taken a year and a federal lawsuit to get this first disclosure on COVID and Wuhan is evidence of cover-up by Fauci's agency."
Fauci, also the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, told a Senate hearing on May 25 that the U.S. funded the lab at the center of speculation about the origins of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
"We had a modest collaboration with very respectable Chinese scientists who were world experts on coronavirus, and we did that through a sub-grant from a larger grant to EcoHealth [Alliance]," Fauci said, referencing a nonprofit group that supported research into coronaviruses.
"The larger grant was about $600,000 over a period of five years. So it was a modest amount. The purpose of it was to study the animal-human interface, to do surveillance and to determine if these bat viruses were even capable of infecting humans."
Internal emails expose Fauci's lies
Internal emails within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and its sub-agency NIAID showed the true scale of funding. (Related: Fauci Virus: Shocking new evidence proves covid-19 began with Dr. Anthony Fauci and NIAID.)
In a document dated April 21, 2020, the Wuhan lab funding from NIAID via EcoHealth was detailed under the headline "NIAID Subawards to Wuhan Institute of Virology." The project title was "Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence."
In numerous interviews and public appearances, Fauci maintained that the money donated to the Wuhan lab was not meant for gain-of-function experiments, which are conducted to make viruses more contagious or deadly.
But in another appearance before the Senate last month, Fauci admitted that there is no way to know if Chinese scientists at the WIV lied and conducted gain-of-function experiments on bat coronaviruses using U.S. tax money.
"There's no way of guaranteeing that," Fauci said at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, responding to a question from Republican Senator John Kennedy. "But in our experience with grantees, including Chinese grantees, which we have had interactions with for a very long period of time, they are very competent, trustworthy scientists."
EcoHealth Alliance received $123 million from government
Recent reports emerged that NIAID may not be the only government organization funding the Wuhan lab. (Related: Pentagon exposed for funneling $39 million to Peter Daszak, EcoHealth Alliance to produce novel coronavirus bioweapons.)
EcoHealth Alliance, the same nonprofit group that used federal grants to fund research into coronaviruses at the WIV, reportedly received $39 million from the Pentagon and $123 million overall from different government agencies until last year.
Exactly how much of that money went toward research at the WIV is unknown.
The lab-leak theory has been gaining momentum since Biden asked the intelligence agencies to take a closer look at the possibility and pressured the World Health Organization to get the underlying data from China.
Biden on May 26 said the intelligence agents were divided on two possible scenarios: laboratory leak and natural transfer from animal to human. "I have now asked the intelligence community to redouble their efforts to collect and analyze information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion, and to report back to me in 90 days," said Biden.
But the president also said a final answer may never be found given the way that China refused to cooperate in the early days of an outbreak, which has gone on to kill 3.8 million people around the world.
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