Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has reached a deal with the State Department to drop his hold on some three dozen nominees in exchange for documents he hopes will shed light on the origins of COVID-19.
Paul has long scrutinized whether the National Institutes of Health funded “gain of function” research on coronaviruses and whether that research could have been used to create a pathogen that accidentally leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China. Paul placed a blanket hold on the nominees in early June, demanding that the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development turn over documents on the matter.
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After weeks of negotiations, Paul finally reached a deal with the Biden administration, just as lawmakers flew home for a five-week recess.
“We are releasing our holds on all the nominees in exchange for information concerning U.S. funding of research in Wuhan, China,” he told the Washington Examiner on Thursday evening.
Paul says the State Department will turn over “all the research that’s been funded in Wuhan,” a decision that will allow his office to “assess it for a degree of risk, and to assess it for any connection to the lab leak.”
“We’ve been seeking documents for over two years, so this is a big breakthrough,” he added. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment beyond directing the Washington Examiner to Thursday comments by Vedant Patel, spokesman for the agency, who said before the holds were dropped that State had been working closely with Paul and had already provided him with documents.
Paul immediately dropped the holds on Thursday night, 38 in total, allowing the Senate to start moving the nominees. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) processed more than a dozen.
The deal does not solve the State Department’s problem entirely, however. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) has placed a hold of his own over the “wokeness” of certain nominees.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), a Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, believes there’s a chance the remaining holds still get resolved soon, noting that Vance’s staff is having “ongoing discussions” with the State Department.
He raised concerns over the “foreign policy implications” of the holds lasting much longer, concerns that are shared by Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), the ranking Republican on the committee.
“When you go without one, it causes issues,” he said of ambassador vacancies. “You can have a really good charge d’affaires, but the country really wants an ambassador because, right or wrong, they all believe the ambassador has a direct line to the president.”
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Intelligence agencies are split over whether the coronavirus that sparked a global pandemic was man-made or originated in nature, but Paul has for years been on a crusade to discredit Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top scientist on infectious diseases during the Trump administration.
Republicans claim that Fauci, who says he has a “completely open mind” on pandemic origins, originally “suppressed” the lab leak hypothesis.
