Moving Toward House Majority, Top Republican Eyes Probes Into Biden’s China Ties, Virus Origins

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) on Capitol Hill in Washington on Sept. 30, 2020. Greg Nash/ Pool/Getty Images

As House Republicans inch closer to the majority on Nov. 9, they’re eyeing to launch an onslaught of probes. Top GOP on the House Oversight Committee said the targets include President Joe Biden and his families and the origin of COVID-19.

“It looks like we’re going to be in the majority. It looks like we’re going to have a new speaker of the House, and Nancy Pelosi is going to have to hand the gavel over to a Republican,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a Nov. 9 on the “Capitol Report” program with NTD news.

At the time of publication, Republicans have grabbed 208 House seats, the Associated Press reported, ten seats away from the 218 needed to take control of the lower chamber of Congress. Democrats, meanwhile, secured 185 seats.

“So I’m excited about that,” he said. “I believe that we now will have an opportunity to fix a lot of the problems that we have in America, from inflation to crime, to a host of other challenges.”

‘Spending Spree for Three Years’

Comer, who is likely to become the chairman of the House Oversight Committee in the Republican-led House, said he wants to bring the panel to “what it was intended to do,” which is to “root out waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in the federal government.”

“Congress has been on a spending spree for three years in the name of COVID. Congressman in both parties have lost their mind with respect to spending. And so much of this spending hasn’t been accountable,” Comer said.

“We want to get [our] spending in check,” he continued. “We also want to hold people accountable for wrongdoing with respect to spending.”

The oversight panel will launch a spate of investigations, according to Comer, who is currently the body’s ranking GOP member. Among the high-profile cases were “Biden family influence peddling” and “origination of COVID-19.”

The veteran House Republican cited a recent poll which found the majority, 52 percent, of Americans agreed an investigation into allegations of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden would be “warranted.” The survey of the 1,000 likely midterm voters was conducted between Oct.19 and 24 by USA TODAY and Suffolk University.

“The actual numbers are probably much higher than that,” he said.

Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, attends an event at the White House in Washington on April 18, 2022. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

This time, Comer said, the investigation targets will not be limited to the families of the president.

“At the end of the day, we’re going to have public hearings, we’re going to produce facts for the American people, and we’re going to let the American people decide.”

Origins of COVID-19

On the origin of COVID-19, Comer signals congressional investigations into Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who Comer accused of covering up information regarding the U.S.-funded virus research in China.

“Why did Dr. Fauci lie for so long about American tax dollars through EcoHealth Alliance going to fund gain-of-function research? Why did he lie about gain-of-function research being done in the Wuhan lab? Why were we even in the Wuhan lab? There are so many questions that the Americans deserve answers to.”

During a 2021 congressional hearing, Fauci clashed with Republican lawmakers, namely Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), also a doctor, over whether the National Institutes of Health provided money to third-party institutions to carry out controversial gain-of-function research on bat coronavirus. Fauci said his agency did not fund gain-of-function research.

Documents disclosed months later indicate that the National Institutes of Health did provide money to EcoHealth Alliance for the research at a top laboratory in Wuhan, a city where the first infections of COVID-19 were reported.

An aerial view shows the P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's central Hubei Province on April 17, 2020. Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images

During the grant period of 2018 and 2019, the Wuhan lab conducted experiments that created a more powerful type of bat coronavirus, which experts say constituted gain-of-function experiments.

Comer said Dr. Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, “have blocked congressional oversight every step of the way.”

“We all suffered through COVID-19 … most of us had kids in public schools that really wasted a year of their life. Our economy was in shambles. It’s still in pieces because of many of the decisions that were made during COVID with the lockdowns and things like that,” he said. “The American people deserve answers and anyone that was involved in any type of cover up, they should be held accountable.”

The Epoch Times has reached out White House and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for comment.

Mark Tapscott contributed to this report.