FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL— In the summer of 2019, the Wuhan Institute of Virology was set to become the headquarters for the Center for Biosafety Mega-Science, according to documents from the National Institutes of Health and National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In less than a year, biosafety seemed an unlikely description for the Wuhan lab that was widely suspected as the site where COVID-19 originated. As COVID began to emerge in the United States in January and February 2020, NIAID “got nervous” about the taxpayer dollars it sent to the Wuhan lab, according to one internal email. Other emails showed officials seemed frustrated and surprised about the lack of candor from the China grantees about the virus. The 145 pages of emails and other government documents show “a striking pattern of naiveté by NIH officials in their dealings with Chinese scientists,” said Alex Finnegan, director of digital capabilities at the Oversight Project, a watchdog group that obtained the documents through the Freedom of Information Act. “NIH officials viewed China’s scientific establishment not as it actually operates—under the authority and control of the Chinese Communist Party—but as they wished it to operate within the norms of open scientific collaboration,” Finnegan told The Daily Signal. “Again and again, reality intruded on this assumption, yet the records show little evidence that NIH changed its posture.” The FBI, CIA, and Department of Energy have concluded that the virus likely leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. However, other agencies are undecided or still contend it had a natural origin. Early in 2020, NIH scientist Ping Chen asked Shi Zhengli, director of Wuhan Institute of Virology, for information on the virus, but Zhengli was not forthcoming. “For my curiosity, would you be able to share the viral agent info?” she asked. Zhengli replied, “Please be patient and wait for official announcement.” On Jan. 22, 2020, Chen told NIH colleagues, “The Chinese government is in charge of the information now.” A little more than a month later, Chen recounted in an email to colleagues a meeting she had with staffers from China’s embassy in Washington. The staffers would not share information. “They wanted information on drug, vaccine, and diagnostic development in the U.S. and the companies. But when we asked about reciprocal information, they immediately turned the subject around and asked us something else,” Chen wrote. “They are not sharing any with us.” NIH and NIAID staffers began to compile information on grants to China. NIH staffer Gayle Bernabe wrote to her colleagues on Feb. 3 that is a request “needed by today.” Bernabe added, “To respond to this request, perhaps we can divide the tasks at hand.” The same day, Chen emailed colleagues about grant money going to a Chinese researcher working under the Chinese Academy of Military Medical Science. Two active grants were going to Dr. Zhou Yusen, a researcher in the Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, described in the email as “an institute under the Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS).”  The Academy of Military Medical Sciences is a unit within the People’s Liberation Army. The grantee, Dr. Zhou Yusen, died in May 2020 after reportedly falling from the roof of the Wuhan Virology Institute.  In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a global pandemic, and President Donald Trump declared a national emergency. The lockdowns would follow.  Although staffers reviewed federal research grants to China, National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci expressed public doubt about a lab leak being the cause of the pandemic. In April 2020, Fauci told reporters during a White House briefing that evidence is “totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human.” He dismissed the theory of a potential lab leak, saying in May that evidence is “very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated.” However, in 2021, he said of the natural origin theory, “I am not convinced about that, I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China.” After retiring from the government, Fauci became a distinguished university professor at Georgetown University with joint appointments at the School of Medicine and the McCourt School of Public Policy. He also became a public speaker, booked by Leading Authorities Inc.  The Daily Signal made phone and email inquiries to Georgetown University and Leading Authorities Inc., in an effort to reach Fauci.  The NIH responded that it is under new leadership now with Director Jay Bhattacharya and is investigating past matters. “The National Institutes of Health (NIH), under the leadership of Director Bhattacharya, fully supports and complies with the executive order addressing dangerous gain-of-function research, and we are currently investigating and reviewing the matters raised, many of which predate the current leadership at both NIH and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID),” an NIH spokesperson told The Daily Signal in an email statement.    Chen is either the sender or recipient of the bulk of emails made available. The Daily Signal reached out to Chen’s current employer for comment. She did not respond as of publication time. 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