GOP, Dem senators push for 9/11-style COVID-19 commission

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Congressional pressure grows to investigate coronavirus origins

State Department correspondent Benjamin Hall reports the latest on the bipartisan senators calling for a new commission on ‘Special Report.’

It’s been almost two years since COVID-19 upended lives worldwide and left 700,000 Americans dead, but still there is no definitive answer on how, where or why the pandemic started.

Now a group of bipartisan senators is calling for a full 9/11-style commission to investigate the origins of the global health crisis, amid mounting evidence that the virus leaked from a Wuhan, China, lab — an idea that for a long time was characterized as "a conspiracy theory" but is now being recognized as a very real possibility.

Led by Republican Sens. Roger Marshall of Kansas and Joni Ernst of Iowa and Democratic Sens. Diane Feinstein of California and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, this new commission would also examine not only the U.S. pandemic response and aim to ensure it never happens again, but it would also allow sanctions to be placed on laboratories that won’t cooperate and even against China.

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Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) arrives at the Senate Chamber before the fifth day of the Senate Impeachment trials for former President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill on February 13, 2021 in Washington, DC. The Senate will hear closing arguments and possibly vote on whether to convict former President Donald Trump for inciting the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6.  (Greg Nash - Pool/Getty Images)

Speaking to Fox News Marshall said, "This is like a nuclear bomb that went off but killed 10 times more people than any nuclear warhead did. We need to find out where this came from."

Marshall also claimed that certain U.S. intelligence agencies have not cooperated adequately so far in the investigation, saying, "I think that the intelligence agencies have been ... not forthcoming. I think that they've released not the documents that could have been released."

The State Department has repeatedly said it backs the current World Health Organization investigation — despite the fact China has repeatedly stonewalled attempts to block it — accused of destroying samples, hiding records and gagging Chinese scientists.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, of New York, speaks during the 2019 California Democratic Party State Organizing Convention in San Francisco, Saturday, June 1, 2019. ((AP Photo/Jeff Chiu))

This new commission would be free from Chinese interference. Jamie Metzl, a member of the WHO international advisory committee who previously served on the NSC, said China’s repeated cover up, suggests its guilt.

"China is doing everything possible to prevent that kind of investigation," Metzl said. "But we can't give China a veto over whether or not we investigate the worst pandemic in a century."

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China meanwhile points the finger the other way, saying on Friday, "The US turns a blind eye to facts and science and has politicized COVID-19 response and then resorted to intelligence community-led origins tracing. "

President Biden has also released his 90-day intelligence review, but that has been criticized for producing no insight into COVID origins. On Wednesday Secretary of State Antony Blinken will convene a virtual meeting of foreign ministers from around the world, but it’s not clear if the Chinese will attend.