A trail of correspondence between scientists, researchers, political operators at White House and mainstream media journalists show that all the parties knew the origin of coronavirus was China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, but they conspired to mislead to protect the reputations of the individuals and institutions they represented.

They wanted the money taps to remain open. They succeeded, but at the expense of millions who died of Covid-19.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grant in question, called “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence,” was originally awarded in 2014. In 2019, it was renewed until 2026 but was temporarily suspended between April and July 2020, due to EcoHealth’s ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

Four days after the grant was suspended, Daszak wrote an email stating his “plan is to continue this work, unfunded for now,” as noted by US Right to Know (USRTK), “His email … seems to contrast with his public statements that work on the grant came to a halt without funding.”

Could the same be true for the DEFUSE experiments?

“The contrast between Daszak’s email and public statements about unfunded work raises questions about his statements on a second controversial EcoHealth grant proposal that had the potential to lead to the existence of SARS-CoV-2,” Kopp writes.

Kopp continued: “This second proposal, called DEFUSE, was never funded. It was submitted to the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, and proposed adding something called a cleavage site to the spike proteins of SARS-related coronaviruses. SARS-CoV-2 has a furin cleavage site in its spike protein, but no other viruses closely related to it have this site.

“The WIV was a partner on the proposal. Although DEFUSE was rejected, similarities between the proposed research and SARS-CoV-2 generated speculation on whether any of the planned work had been carried out.

“When asked, Daszak responded, ‘… we would not be doing that research before we submit the proposal. That’s not how it works.’ According to Richard Ebright, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, investigators do often perform research before submitting their grant proposals.

“‘In the molecular life sciences, it is the norm to begin, and often make substantial progress on, new lines of research before seeking and obtaining funding for the research,’ said Ebright.

“‘It would be unusual for a research group with multiple current lines of funding not to have started a new line of research before obtaining funding for it, and it would be almost unheard of for a group with multiple current lines of support not to proceed with a new line of research simply because an application for an additional line of funding application was not approved.’”

In a December 2023 interview with investigative journalist Paul Thacker, Dr Robert Kadlec – who has worked to counter the proliferation of biological weapons for more than 30 years, and helped write much of the US biodefence legislation – confirmed what now seems obvious.

Namely, federally funded scientists have engaged in a “colossal misdirection” to hide evidence showing the pandemic began in a Wuhan lab funded by American tax dollars. As for their motive, he believes it’s to protect reputations and access to federal grant money.

Aside from Daszak and Baric, other individuals who appear to have played central roles in this misdirection include Scripps researcher Kristian Andersen, who in a February 1, 2020, email to Dr Anthony Fauci stated that “some of the features” of SARS-CoV-2 “look engineered,” and that he and three other researchers all found “the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.”

Shortly thereafter, he published an article in Nature Medicine refuting the idea that the virus might be manmade.

Similarly, Fauci in a February 1, 2020, email to Dr Francis Collins and several others noted there were mutations in the virus that were unlikely to have evolved naturally in bats, and that the experts he’d been in contact with suspected the mutation may have been “intentionally inserted.”

Publicly, however, Fauci dismissed the lab leak theory as an unfounded conspiracy theory. Within weeks, several other virologists who echoed Andersen’s concerns also mysteriously ended up putting their names to papers refuting the lab leak theory.

That included virologist Eddie Holmes, who also happens to have been a guest professor at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing – a fact he did not disclose and has since deleted from his publicly available CV.

All of these papers are highly suspect. One of them was cosigned by Jeremy Farrar, who put together the Feb. 1, 2020 call with Fauci. Another was ghostwritten by Baric and Zhengli, and the third paper was pushed through to publication by Fauci and Farrar.

Was the pandemic a result of NIH-funded research?

“How do we get three papers bubble up into the academic literature, within six weeks, that all come to the complete opposite conclusion of what virologists privately speculated on February 1?” Thacker asks.

“I’d like to know, too,” Kadlec replies. “I wish I could explain that … Fauci got this other group, with Jeremy Farrar, and his buddies. And this group privately says they have concerns, and then publicly say there’s no way a lab accident could happen. That’s the chain of events.”

Kadlec continued: “[Fauci] is a real operator, man. I’m not saying that HE misled us, but somehow we went from one story to the other.

“The cabal seems to be Jeremy Farrar, Francis Collins and Fauci.

“They seem to be the centre of what was going on. Then you have these researchers, Kristian Anderson, Robert Garry and the others being included. Mike Worobey wasn’t part of these conversations, but he became a public mouthpiece for a lot of this.

“I’m very suspect of what happened. As much as you would like to think Fauci is behind this, I think Collins may be the guy. … I think what was driven here was reputational risk to NIH and to the two people that both advocated – Fauci and Collins – for unfettered, scientific research, meaning gain-of-function research.

“NIH funded gain-of-function research may have resulted in this accident. … [Y]ou can’t make a cogent, convincing argument that it came naturally from an animal. What they were trying to do is make the argument that it’s zoonotic, and there’s no evidence to support that. …

“… It looks like an information operation to me. That’s … how I view this. …

“… Misdirection. It’s like denial and deception. …

“… The motivation seems to be obvious, right? It’s reputational risk and institutional risk to these funders.”

• The Defender report  / By Dr Joseph Mercola, founder of Mercola.com