Rep. Guy Reschenthaler on Bill to Defund EcoHealth Alliance: ‘Unconscionable’ Taxpayers Funded Wuhan Lab

It is “unconscionable” that EcoHealth Alliance “repeatedly funneled American taxpayer dollars” to the “CCP-controlled” Wuhan virology lab that conducts “potentially deadly research,” according to Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, who introduced a bill to defund the NGO accused of collaborating with the Chinese institute to study bat coronaviruses, as he warned against “risky experiments in foreign labs run by our adversaries.”

On Wednesday, Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA), along with Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), introduced the Defund EcoHealth Alliance Act to completely ban any federal funding of EcoHealth Alliance, the U.S. nonprofit that has repeatedly funded dangerous and potentially deadly research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China’s central Hubei province.

The bill extends to “any subsidiaries and related organizations that are directly controlled by EcoHealth Alliance, Inc., including subgrant or subcontract organizations or individuals,” and would require the U.S. Comptroller General to review federal funds both directly or indirectly awarded to the group over the past decade that were provided to the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

EcoHealth, a New York City non-profit with extensive ties to the Chinese research institute, has been accused of funneling millions in grant funding from the U.S. to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) laboratory which has long been suspected of being the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction of the bill follows the release of a report on Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) that detailed “vast reporting violations” and “improper procedures” conducted by EcoHealth and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The report also highlighted how the NIH “missed opportunities to more effectively monitor research,” recommending consideration of whether it is appropriate to refer WIV to HHS for debarment.

A press release from Wednesday notes that EcoHealth “has a troubling record of failing to report findings from federally funded research,” having “refused to cooperate with congressional oversight of federal funding awarded to the organization, and its collaborations with the WIV — the likely origin site of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News, the congressman deemed it “unconscionable” that EcoHealth Alliance “repeatedly funneled American taxpayer dollars” to the controversial institution.

According to Reschenthaler, the “CCP-controlled” lab “conducts dangerous and potentially deadly research.”

He also called on his congressional colleagues to support his move.

“As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, which is tasked with ensuring our nation’s fiscal responsibility, I urge my colleagues to support this bill banning funding from this negligent organization,” he stated.

“Congress must ensure Americans are never footing the bill for risky experiments in foreign labs run by our adversaries,” he concluded.

EcoHealth Alliance came under scrutiny in 2021 after it was discovered that in the midst of the COVID pandemic, the non-profit had used US grant money to finance bat coronavirus research at the WIV.

The grant was awarded by the NIH’s National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), then led by infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has since denied the research involved was “gain of function” — altering a virus to increase its lethality.

This week, a report showed the Department of Defense (DoD) awarded a three-year $3 million grant to EcoHealth last month for the purpose of “reducing the threat of viral spillover from wildlife in the Philippines,” according to USASpending.gov.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/01/26/exclusive-rep-guy-reschenthaler-on-bill-to-defund-ecohealth-alliance-unconscionable-taxpayers-funded-wuhan-lab/

France denies the West is at war with Russia

Sending tanks to Ukraine doesn’t make the country or its allies a party to the conflict, Paris declared

The fact that the US, Germany and several other countries announced they would be supplying Ukraine with main battle tanks doesn’t mean NATO is at war with Moscow, the French Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. The comments from Quai d’Orsay come after the controversial speech by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in the European Parliament earlier this week.

“We are not at war with Russia and none of our partners are,” ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre said on Thursday, according to AFP. “The delivery of military equipment… does not constitute co-belligerence.”

The day before, Washington announced it would send more than 30 of its M1 Abrams tanks to Kiev, while Berlin said it would contribute over a dozen Leopard 2 panzers and not stand in the way of Poland and other EU and NATO members who wish to hand theirs over to Ukraine as well.

Seeking to drum up support for tank deliveries on Tuesday, Baerbock told the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) that the EU must move in lockstep “because we are fighting a war against Russia and not against each other.”

Asked to clarify her comments, the German Foreign Ministry said that Russia had launched a “war of aggression” against Ukraine and that international law was “clear” that Berlin’s support for Kiev’s “individual right of self-defense, guaranteed by the UN Charter, does not make Germany a party to the conflict.”

On Wednesday, French PM Elisabeth Borne told the parliament in Paris that her government was “continuing our analysis” of the proposal to send Leclerc tanks to Ukraine. France has already promised Kiev a number of AMX-10 “light tanks,” earlier this month.

Meanwhile, French FM Catherine Colonna visited Ukraine on Thursday, meeting with her counterpart Dmitry Kuleba in Odessa to “show France's long-term support” and “assess Ukraine’s urgent needs in the humanitarian and military sectors in order to provide concrete responses,” according to a press release from Quai d’Orsay.

https://www.rt.com/news/570536-france-war-ukraine-russia/

REALITY DENIED

Kinzinger: U.S. Will Send Ukraine F-16 Fighter Jets ‘Inevitably’

CNN political commentator Adam Kinzinger predicted Thursday on “The Situation Room” that the United States would inevitably send Ukraine F-16 fighter jets.

Anchor Wolf Blitzer said, “Ukraine has already pushed for even more weapons, very much on their wish list include fighter jets. Do you see that as the next step for western allies potentially?”

Kinzinger said, “Yeah, I think what we need to understand here is pretty much everything Ukraine has pushed for. It’s taken a while for the U.S. and the allies to finally agree they, in fact, need that stuff. Part of that is the United States doesn’t want to step out too far ahead of Europe. It’s keeping this alliance together. But I think, and here’s one of the biggest untold things that’s going on in this war, which is one of the struggles in Eastern Europe over the past decade or two has been they have old Russian equipment, how do they move over to NATO standard equipment, obviously very different supply lines and very different training and actually what this war has done is flushed a lot of that Russian equipment in Eastern Europe into Ukraine. They’ve started bringing a lot of these Eastern European countries back into total NATO standards. In Ukraine, I think we have to look and recognize Ukraine will be a NATO standard military equipment country that includes F-16s. They have an excess capacity of pilots. I have talked to them. I, in fact, led the last effort in Congress to begin training them that can come here and learn the F-16. It will take a couple of months because it’s a very different mission set and, of course, weapons system. That way, they’re ready if and probably inevitably when the U.S. and the west decide to send F-16s that way.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2023/01/26/kinzinger-u-s-will-send-ukraine-f-16-fighter-jets-inevitably/