Top Republican calls for global investigation into China’s ‘dangerous disinformation campaign’ about coronavirus

“I recommend that you consider pursuing a multilateral investigation into the CCP’s coronavirus coverup, which will underscore that their pandemic-enabling malfeasance is not just an American concern, but a global one,” McCaul said. “To refute the CCP’s dangerous disinformation campaign, the United States should work with like-minded democracies, including Taiwan, to produce a definitive account of the origins of the virus, the CCP’s culpability, and whether CCP influence undermined the legitimacy of the WHO at this critical time.”

The State Department declined the Washington Examiner’s request for comment, but Pompeo recently spoke forcefully on the issue.

“The Chinese Communist Party poses a substantial threat to our health and way of life, as the Wuhan virus outbreak clearly has demonstrated,” Pompeo said following the G-7 teleconference summit this week.

Western officials say top Beijing diplomats and Chinese state-run outlets have repeatedly pushed disinformation about the coronavirus’s origins, including blaming the U.S. military.

“The Chinese Communist Party lied and covered up the truth about the coronavirus,” McCaul told the Washington Examiner. “Because of their actions, the disease has spread throughout the world, sickening hundreds of thousands of people and killing tens of thousands.”

Pompeo has repeatedly admonished the Chinese government for its denials about the coronavirus’s origins, and he insists on calling the illness the “Wuhan coronavirus.”

“It has proven incredibly frustrating to work with the Chinese Communist Party to get our hands around the data set, which will ultimately be the solution to both getting the vaccine and attacking this risk,” Pompeo said this month.

In his letter, McCaul also recommended the State Department direct each overseas U.S. diplomatic post to “issue a démarche with evidence of the CCP’s role in allowing the virus to spread,” publicly release as much information as possible “to more fully inform the American people and the world about this coverup and subsequent disinformation campaign,” brief Congress on the CCP’s “coronavirus coverup” and its “global disinformation campaign” as well as “how the United States and our allies plan to respond,” consider “full reciprocity” after the CCP kicked U.S. media outlets out of China this month, and send Congress a legislative proposal “for any new authorities you may need to most effectively address the CCP’s disinformation campaign.”

The U.S. Intelligence Community reportedly warned the Trump administration and Congress earlier this year that China was likely lying about the seriousness of the COVID-19 outbreak that has now spread across the world.

As of Friday evening, there were more than 595,000 confirmed coronavirus cases around the world and more than 27,324 deaths tied to the infection, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. There have been 81,897 confirmed cases in China and 3,296 confirmed deaths, although U.S. officials have cast doubt on those numbers. In the U.S., there were more than 103,942 cases, which have resulted in more than 1,689 deaths.

Chinese Ambassador to South Africa Lin Songtian tweeted this month that “more evidence suggests that the virus was not originated at the seafood market in Wuhan at all.” He was quote-tweeting a missive from China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, who shared an article blaming the coronavirus on a U.S. military lab. “Please read and retweet it. COVID-19: Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the U.S.,” he said.

The top CCP foreign affairs spokesman said in another tweet that “it might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan… U.S. owe us an explanation!”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying tweeted last week that the coronavirus didn’t originate in China and implied the outbreak began in the U.S. In recent days, state-run Xinhua News Agency, as well as the Chinese Embassy to France’s official account, referred to the COVID-19 pandemic as the “Trumpandemic.”

State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus has engaged in a lengthy back-and-forth on Twitter with Hua. She noted that by Jan. 3, “Chinese authorities had already ordered COVID-19 virus samples destroyed, silenced Wuhan doctors, and censored public concerns online” and saying that “this is a timeline the world must absolutely scrutinize.”

As Chinese officials took their allegations to Twitter, two Republican lawmakers, Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, wrote to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, calling for the suspension of accounts “waging a massive propaganda campaign to rewrite the history of COVID-19 and whitewash the Party’s lies to the Chinese people and the world.” But Twitter declined to take any action, with a representative pointing the Washington Examiner to 2019 blog post outlining the rules about world leaders using the social media site.

There is well-documented evidence that China tried to cover up the existence and spread of the coronavirus, muzzled whistleblowers, misled the World Health Organization, and attempted to keep independent health experts from investigating in Wuhan.

At least one study indicated that if the Chinese government acted more quickly, the coronavirus’s spread around the world would have been greatly reduced.

The WHO concluded the COVID-19 virus first appeared in the city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province in China. WHO’s investigative report in February concluded that “early cases identified in Wuhan are believed to have acquired infection from a zoonotic source” in the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market in Wuhan.

“In an attempt to remake their image, they are spreading lies to try and blame the United States for its origination. Secretary Pompeo and the State Department have been vigorously working to hold the CCP accountable for their lies,” McCaul told the Washington Examiner. “And it’s important that Congress work with them to get to the bottom of this cover-up.”