Former President Trump wanted to publicly question Dr. Anthony Fauci about American funding of the Wuhan laboratory suspected of l...
Former President Trump wanted to publicly question Dr. Anthony Fauci about American funding of the Wuhan laboratory suspected of leaking COVID-19 but was talked out of setting up a presidential commission by aides, according to a forthcoming book.
An executive order had been drafted in order to hold China to account and bill Beijing for reparations.
Details emerged Saturday amid fresh question about who knew what and when in the federal government about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump was 'enthusiastic' about setting up a commission along the lines of those that investigated the 9/11 attacks and the JFK assassination, according to What Really Happened in Wuhan, by Sharri Markson, due to be published in September by HarperCollins.
And, excerpts published by the New York Post, reveal that officials suspected China developed a vaccine for COVID-19 before the outbreak.
“It may seem likely that the Wuhan Institute of Virology has been researching a vaccine before the outbreak,” a State Department analysis authored by Miles Yu, a China adviser to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
New book probes the way Trump administration viewed the origins of COVID-19 and lays bare divisions over how to investigate lab at center of leak worries (pictured) and how to handle China. It claims President Trump was in favor of a commission to examine the issue but the the idea was shelved
China hawk and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro reportedly drafted executive order in August 2020 to establish 'The National Commission on the Origins and Costs of COVID-19
Navarro blamed White House economist Larry Kudlow for urging Trump not to push ahead with the plan for fear it would destroy already fraught relations with Beijing
Forthcoming book by journalist Sharri Markson offers fresh insight into how Trump's White House tried to investigate the Chinese origins of COVID-19
The details offer fresh insight into how officials focused in on the Wuhan laboratory while scientists publicly insisted the virus had emerged naturally.
But skeptics will also see an opportunity for China hawks to settle scores and blame others for getting in the way of their plans.
The book reveals an executive order was drafted in August 2020 to establish 'The National Commission on the Origins and Costs of COVID-19.
The driving force was combative White House trade adviser Peter Navarro.
He told DailyMail.com he wanted Tom Cotton as commissioner and retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert Spalding to lead sessions on the geo-politics of the affair.
Witnesses were to include Fauci and EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak, who was responsible for funneling some U.S. funding to the Wuhan lab.
'It would have established the cause of the virus,' he said as well as reparations owed by China.
'That likely would have been of the nature of twenty trillion dollars.'
It would be run out of the State Department and was backed by Pompeo.
This week former President Trump said fresh questions about the Wuhan Institute of Virology vindicated his stance last year pointing the finger at China and its role in the emergence of COVID-19. He said the country should pay ten trillion dollars for the damage it caused
Three members of staff Wuhan Institute of Virology were reported to have sought medical help for COVID-like symptoms in November 2019, adding to growing speculation that the virus escaped from the facility triggered a pandemic
But it was killed off by the president's economic advisers, he said, who feared it would shatter already strained relations with China, and concerns that it would look like a partisan move so close to an election.
'I just couldn't get it past the usual suspects in the White House,' he said, referring to Kudlow and Steve Mnuchin, Trump's Treasury Secretary.
'They were the sand in the gears. Just stupid, flat out stupid on both their parts but there were only so many battles I could win.
'I just think it was tragic for the nation.'
In the book, he added: 'We had a presidential commission for Pearl Harbor, for the BP oil spill and for the Kennedy assassination. We need one into the origins of the coronavirus as well.'
The scientific, political and media consensus that the virus emerged spontaneously has broken down in recent weeks.
President Joe Biden ordered the intelligence community to look again at its origins as a string of high-profile scientists said they could no longer be sure that it crossed from an animal host to humans.
At the same time, the release of thousands of Fauci's emails have prompted his conservative critics to step up their attacks.
The new book offers more support for the once fringe idea that the virus could have been the result of a military program.
It reveals that an internal State Department report raised questions about whether China began researching a vaccine before the outbreak.
Patent applications for an anti-viral treatment lodged on January 19 2020 and a virus patent filed on February 24 triggered questions.
'Filing a patent requires lengthy documentation, clinical statistics and international national legal opinions,' says the report.
'It normally would take months or even years to prepare and compile the application, rather than a few days.'
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