Education Department investigates University of Texas ties to Wuhan lab
The Department of Education revealed that it is scrutinizing the University of Texas’s financial ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology as part of its broadening investigation of foreign funding by China and other countries on U.S. campuses. Reed Rubinstein, the Education Department’s acting general counsel, sent a seven-page letter to University of Texas Chancellor James Milliken on April 24, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Friday, with the government saying it did not have confidence that the school had reported all of its foreign contracts, including with the Wuhan lab, as required by Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965.
The letter said the University of Texas’s Medical Branch is responsible for the operation of the Galveston National Laboratory, which, in turn, has “substantial contractual relations” with a maximum biocontainment laboratory, or MCL, in Wuhan, China. That lab is owned by the Chinese government’s Chinese Academy of Sciences. State Department cables in 2018 warned about biosecurity and management problems at the lab. The U.S. intelligence community is currently investigating whether the novel coronavirus originated in a wet market or through an accidental release from the lab. The Education Department noted that from 2014 through 2019, the University of Texas “reported approximately twenty-four contracts with various Chinese state-owned universities and ten contracts with Huawei Technologies, all purportedly worth a reported total of $12,987,896.” But “it is not clear, however, whether UT has in fact reported all gifts from or contracts with or relating to the Wuhan MCL, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and/or all other foreign sources, including agents and instrumentalities of the government of the Peoples’ Republic of China," the agency said. To verify the school’s compliance with the law, the government asked it to hand over within 30 days a tranche of China-related records from 2012 through the present, including copies of each donation agreement and contract reached by the University of Texas with the Wuhan lab or the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The Education Department also asked for a complete list identifying anyone at the school who had been involved “in any capacity” with the Wuhan lab and asked the school to provide the contact information of those people.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/education-department-investigates-university-of-texas-ties-to-wuhan-lab
Letter to House/Senate, Matt Gaetz/Martha McSally
https://www.grassley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/McSally-Gaetz%20Letter%20to%20Senate%20%26%20House%20Leadership%20re%20WIV%20funding%20-%20FINAL.pdf
CHINA’S IMPACT ON THE U.S. EDUCATION SYSTEM
https://www.portman.senate.gov/sites/default/files/PSI%20Report%20China%27s%20Impact%20on%20the%20US%20Education%20System.pdf
Exclusive — Federal Health Officials Investigating Wuhan Lab Suspected of Leaking Coronavirus, Taxpayer Grants to Lab
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/27/exclusive-federal-health-officials-investigating-wuhan-lab-suspected-of-leaking-coronavirus-taxpayer-grants-to-lab/
Trump administration investigating Harvard and Yale for financial ties to China
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-administration-is-investigating-harvard-and-yale-for-financial-ties-to-china
US officials sounded alarm about Wuhan lab years before coronavirus outbreak
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/us-officials-sounded-alarm-about-wuhan-lab-years-before-coronavirus-outbreak
U.S. Probes University of Texas Links to Chinese Lab Scrutinized Over Coronavirus
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-probes-university-of-texas-links-to-chinese-lab-scrutinized-over-coronavirus-11588325401