On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., led U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Mike Braun, R-Ind, Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on “what, if any, legal action the Department of Justice (DOJ) has pursued against the Chinese Communist Party for its role in the origin and attempt to cover up the COVID-19 pandemic, which took the lives of over a million Americans.”
In the letter, the senators call on Garlands to “use his position to vindicate the interests of the millions of Americans who suffered at the hand of the Chinese Communist Party rather than spend valuable agency resources catering to the politics and partisan policies of the far-left.”
The letter is below.
Dear Attorney General Garland:
More than 1.1 million Americans have died due to COVID-19 in the past three years, and untold millions more have suffered, and continue to suffer, physical and economic harms related to the pandemic. Last month, newly uncovered intelligence information led the U.S. Department of Energy to conclude that COVID-19 emerged from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, joining the assessment previously made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the pandemic’s origins.
We write to ask what legal action you have pursued or plan to pursue as U.S. Attorney General against the Chinese Communist Party officials responsible for that lab leak and/or its cover up to vindicate the interests of the millions of Americans who have been severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic?
Your tenure as U.S. Attorney General has, regrettably, been marked by an apparent preference to wield the substantial resources of the federal law enforcement apparatus at your disposal for nakedly partisan endeavors rather than engaging in meaningful pursuits to benefit our country as a whole. Since taking office, you have targeted concerned parents for heightened surveillance at the behest of teachers unions, pursued federal criminal prosecutions against pro-life activists while allowing brazen fire bombings of pregnancy centers and picketing of U.S. Supreme Court Justices’ homes by pro-abortion groups to go unchecked, and you continue the meritless pursuit of phantom claims of “voter suppression” based upon Georgia’s election integrity laws, despite notable increases in voter participation and turnout in the 2022 general and runoff elections in that state.
Rather than use your position to pursue the politics and partisan policies of the far-left, we suggest you fulfill your duty as the chief law enforcement officer of the Federal Government to advance the interests of the United States and hold accountable the Chinese Communist Party and international organizations responsible for their role in the COVID-19 pandemic. To the extent you find a legal impediment to holding the Chinese Communist Party officials accountable under your agency’s existing statutory authorities, we encourage you to specifically identify such limitations in federal law in your response to this letter.
We wholeheartedly welcome the opportunity to draft appropriate legislation to remove those barriers to pursuing justice for the millions of Americans harmed by the misconduct of the Chinese Communist Party.
Author
