House Democrats and Republicans are coming together for two bipartisan bills Friday — to get to the bottom of how the pandemic started, and to allow the families of victims to sue the Chinese Communist Party for damages stemming from its early concealment of the virus.
The first bill, being introduced by five Democrats and five Republicans, is called the “Made in America Emergency Preparedness Act,” and would establish a 9/11-style commission to investigate how the once-in-a-generation pandemic began.
The legislation was originally introduced last April by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.).
The second proposal, to be introduced by Fitzpatrick and Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.), would allow families of COVID-19 victims to sue China or any other country that “intentionally misled the international community on the outbreak.”
Called the “Never Again International Outbreak Prevention Act,” the bill would strip China of its sovereign immunity, the legal doctrine protecting governments from civil or criminal prosecution.
The White House did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment on the bills.
News of the bipartisan efforts comes one day after the Senate unanimously approved a measure requiring the federal government to declassify intelligence on the origins of COVID-19.
That bill, offered by Sens. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), was passed late Wednesday by unanimous consent, a method which expedites proceedings if no present member of the Senate objects.
The rare moment of bipartisan agreement in the upper chamber of Congress was in response to President Biden this week ordering US spy agencies to conduct a 90-day investigation into whether COVID-19 was released by a Chinese lab.
The White House said Wednesday it wasn’t ruling out any possibilities, including the deliberate release of the virus.
Should the measure also pass the House and be signed into law by Biden, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence would be given 90 days to declassify “any and all information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the coronavirus disease.”
Biden made the abrupt pivot on Tuesday, following weeks of the administration on defense about deferring to the World Health Organization for answers on how the pandemic started.
In a statement, Biden revealed that two theories predominate current US official thinking: that the virus emerged naturally from animals or escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China.
The lab leak theory gained traction more recently, hitting the mainstream media this week after The Wall Street Journal reported that three employees at the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell so ill that they were hospitalized in November 2019.
The article cited “a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report.”
In light of these revelations, one House lawmaker on the House China Task Force is demanding accountability from Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Speaking to Fox News Thursday, Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.) argued that Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, had been “wrong” too many times on COVID matters.
“I was skeptical of Dr. Fauci from the very beginning of this — and remember Fauci has been wrong over and over again. Early on back in January, he said America has nothing to worry about regarding this virus,” the Pennsylvania lawmaker began.
“He’s been wrong this entire time and when [Sen.] Tom Cotton [R-Ark.] and myself were saying that this virus probably originated in a lab in Wuhan — the lab where they were doing gain-of-function research on zoonotic bat-borne diseases — he was the one saying that it was a conspiracy theory.
“He was the one pushing the real conspiracy theory that this virus originated in nature.”
