Republican Senator Joni Ernst has called for the expansion of an audit of the Department of Defense (DOD) into the extent of funding sent to Chinese research laboratories, including into work on advanced artificial intelligence that was exposed by Newsweek.
The audit by the Office of the Inspector General was spurred by a January 25 letter written by the Iowa lawmaker and former Wisconsin Representative Mike Gallagher. They requested information from the DOD on any funding provided to the People's Republic of China or its affiliates for research activities relevant to the reporting requirement of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). That included funding for COVID-19 research.
In January, lawmakers also called for answers from the DOD after a Newsweek investigation showed that a top Chinese AI scientist had received more than $30 million in U.S. grants, including from the Pentagon.
"The Department of Defense should defend the nation, not support research with the potential to do us harm," Ernst told Newsweek on Wednesday. "While bureaucrats are blindly giving away taxpayer funds, China doesn't even have to steal our research. It's clear Americans deserve a detailed inventory of all the dangerous dollars sent overseas, which is why I've launched an investigation to track down every cent."
A spokesperson for the DOD IG told Newsweek via email: "We anticipate providing our report to Congress in June and have no further comment at this time."
According to the IG's response to the lawmakers, the audit "will determine the extent to which the DOD awarded federal funds directly or indirectly through grants, contracts, subgrants, subcontracts, or any other type of agreement or collaboration, during the 10-year period from 2014 through 2023, to Chinese research labs or to fund research or experiments in China or other foreign countries designed to enhance pathogens of pandemic potential."
Ernst has investigated multiple U.S. government agencies in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, including requesting the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) look closer into EcoHealth Alliance—a New York nonprofit found to have received grant funding to partner with the WIV to study bat coronaviruses, green-lighted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), then led by Dr. Anthony Fauci.
EcoHealth Alliance has received over $47 million from the Pentagon since 2008, according to federal open data source USA Spending.
Ernst referenced a January 2023 report published by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Office of the IG, which found "that EcoHealth did not ensure that subawards were compliant with Federal requirements, did not ensure compliance with subrecipient monitoring and reporting requirements, and did not comply with certain public disclosure requirements associated with reporting subaward funding."
"In addition, EcoHealth did not always use its grant funds in accordance with Federal requirements, resulting in $89,171 in unallowable costs. These deficiencies occurred because NIH and EcoHealth did not follow established policies and procedures," the report added.
In January, two House committees and three subcommittees asked the DOD, the National Science Foundation (NSF), which is a federal government agency, and the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) why they failed to pay attention to "concerning signs" over the Chinese-born scientist Song-Chun Zhu, who was revealed in Newsweek's reporting to have received over $30 million in U.S. grants for work on AI with potential military applications.
U.S. lawmakers apprehensive have voiced concerns over Chinese scientific research that could pose dangers for the U.S.
"We may never get answers about what really happened in Wuhan from Dr. Fauci, EcoHealth, or China, but this investigation enables us to pinpoint where another man-made pandemic could possibly originate and prevent that from happening," Ernst said.
"As more evidence emerges that our own tax dollars are advancing the interests of our adversaries, it's clear we need greater transparency and accountability of how, why, and especially where our money is going."
Gallagher, who had chaired the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, resigned from the House last weekend.
Update 4/26/24, 11:39 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from DOD IG.
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