Emails reveal top US scientist warned Chinese colleagues that Republicans wanted to investigate Wuhan lab for COVID-19 origins



A top U.S. scientist at a lab in Texas that shared close ties with the Wuhan Institute of Virology was offered a job at a Chinese university about one year after warning Chinese scientists that members of Congress were likely to start an investigation of the COVID-19 lab-leak theory, records obtained by Judicial Watch reveal.

In emails from April 2020, Dr. James W. LeDuc, a professor and former director of Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch, warned the top scientist at the Wuhan lab, Dr. Zhengli Shi, that Republican lawmakers were pushing for an investigation of her lab, which received funding from the U.S. government to conduct research into coronaviruses.

“These startling documents show that China had partners here in the United States willing to go to bat for them on the Wuhan lab controversy,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Judicial Watch obtained these email records through a public records request issued to the University of Texas Medical Branch. The Galveston National Laboratory at UTMB is among the largest active bio-containment facilities in the United States, hosting several biosafety level 4 labs where deadly diseases are studied under tight security restrictions.

LeDuc is a renowned expert on biosafety with decades of experience operating BSL-4 labs — the highest safety level designation, reserved for labs that work with the most dangerous pathogens, like the Ebola or Marburg viruses. His lab in Galveston has partnered with China since at least 2013, when construction on the Wuhan Institute began, and he has made several trips to Wuhan to train staff since at least 1986. LeDuc's Galveston lab also hosted two Chinese post-doctoral students, who were trained to work safely in BSL-4 facilities and who returned to China to work in the Wuhan lab.

The lab-leak origins theory of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, centers on the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is located near the seafood market to which the first major outbreak of the virus was traced. Though the theory is disputed by scientists who say it is more likely that COVID-19 naturally evolved from an animal host, conclusive evidence pointing toward either origins theory has remained elusive. And while neither hypothesis has been proven, opponents of the lab-leak theory have waged a vigorous campaign to label it "misinformation" and discredit it, often with the help of big tech companies that banned users from discussing the theory at the prompting of top public health officials. Many of these officials never disclosed potential conflicts of interest they would have if the lab-leak theory proved true, such National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose agency provided taxpayer funding for coronavirus research at the Wuhan lab.

The emails obtained by Judicial Watch show that as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and other Republicans urged the Trump administration to investigate the Wuhan lab in 2020, LeDuc became aware of their efforts and warned his Chinese colleagues.

An April 16, 2020, email from former commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases David Franz to LeDuc carries the subject line "Rubio" and states, "I heard from someone in government this evening that Senator Rubio is starting to push for an investigation regarding Wuhan lab. Just found it on the web at Forbes by Kenneth Repoza. Title of article is ‘eight senators call for investigation into coronavirus origins.’”

The email links to a Forbes article on an effort by Rubio and seven other Republican senators to have Trump appoint a special envoy to investigate the origins of COVID-19 and the lab-leak theory. Records show that LeDuc forwarded this email to Shi, director of the Wuhan lab, requesting a phone conversation with her "soon" to discuss the potential investigation.

Shi wrote back on April 18, 2020, rejecting LeDuc's request. "Due to the complicated situation, I don’t think it’s a right time to communicate by the call. What I can tell you is that this virus is not a leaky [sic] from our lab or any other labs. It’s a shame to make this scientific question so complicated.”

LeDuc responded that he had been asked to give an accounting of his work with the Wuhan lab to the University of Texas system and was preparing a summary of that work he could provide to university administrators or to members of Congress should he be asked to do so. He offered to let Shi edit the summary of their work together.

I understand completely and I certainly do not wish to compromise you personally or your research activities. Given our long history of collaborations between the GNL 9Galveston National Laboratory0 and the WIV (Wuhan Institute of Virology0, I have been approached repeatedly for details on our work. Attached is a draft summary that I will be providing to the leadership of our University of Texas system and likely to Congressional committees that are being formed now. Please review carefully and make any changes that you would like. I want this to be as accurate as possible and I certainly do not want to misrepresent any of your valuable contributions.

Two days later in an April 20, 2020, email, LeDuc wrote to Shi and Dr. Zhiming Yuan, the director of the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, informing them that he is concerned that the Wuhan lab will continue to be the focus of those investigating the origins of COVID-19.

"I’m afraid that this discussion will continue for some time regarding where early coronavirus work was being done, the role, if any, of the Wuhan CDC in research on bat-associated coronaviruses, and exactly when scientists at WIV [Wuhan Institute of Virology] first became aware of the new coronavirus and had possession of specimens in the WIV and where was that work done (level of biocontainment)," LeDuc wrote.

Previously reported emails show that months earlier, LeDuc had pushed his Chinese colleagues to be transparent and answer questions investigators would ask about the possible origins of COVID-19. In February, LeDuc had sent Yuan a series of questions he believed the Wuhan lab would need to answer as part of an investigation into whether COVID-19 was "the result of a release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (main campus or new BSL3/BSL4 facilities)."

The questions he asked were never answered, and China continues to stonewall international investigators.


Wuhan lab agreement with UTMB allows 'secret files' to be deleted at request



The Chinese lab at the center of the disputed lab-leak origins theory for COVID-19 had an agreement with a U.S. lab in Texas giving both parties the right to ask their partner to destroy all records of their work, according to a memorandum obtained by the non-profit watchdog group U.S. Right to Know.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch signed a memorandum of understanding in 2017 that states either lab can ask the other to return or "destroy" any "secret files, materials and equipment."

Both of these labs study the world's most dangerous pathogens, and they have worked together since 2013, making their collaboration formal in 2018. Researchers at UTMB have received federal funding from the National Institutes of Health to conduct bio-safety training with their partners in Wuhan, who operate under the state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences. The objective of the partnership was to promote research cooperation between the U.S. and China to control infectious diseases and protect "laboratory safety and global health security," according to the memo.

The document states that either party "is entitled to ask the other to destroy and/or return the secret files, materials and equipment without any backups."

This confidentiality clause extends to any communications, documents, data, or equipment resulting from the two labs' collaboration and is retained after the agreement's five year term ends in October 2022.

“All cooperation … shall be treated as confidential information by the parties,” the memo states.

SCOOP from @emilyakopp : "The Wuhan Institute of Virology has the right to ask a partnering lab in the U.S. to destroy all records of their work, according to a legal document obtained by @USRightToKnow" full discussion w/ @briebriejoy & @KimIversenShow : https://youtu.be/A45vKmCzzaI\u00a0pic.twitter.com/1xQtH0ktnD
— Rising (@Rising) 1650468657

Experts that spoke to USRTK said the agreement contains broad language that should raise red flags, given that the Chinese government has obstructed international investigations into the COVID-19 pandemic's origins and the Wuhan lab has previously been accused of deleting viral sequences from a NIH database that could shed a light on where the virus came from.

“The clause is quite frankly explosive,” said Reuben Guttman, a partner at Guttman, Buschner & Brooks PLLC who specializes in whistleblower cases. “Anytime I see a public entity, I would be very concerned about destroying records.”

Guttman said that as a public university, the UTMB lab faces high standards for record-keeping under state and federal laws.

“You can’t just willy nilly say, ‘well, you know, the Chinese can tell us when to destroy a document.’ It doesn’t work like that,” he said. “There has to be a whole protocol.”

Legal experts interviewed by the Houston Chronicle agreed that records of the university's collaboration with the Wuhan lab would be subject to record-keeping laws and that the university should not be able to delete them because of a contractual agreement.

“You can’t contract away obligations under a statute,” Austin attorney Bill Aleshire, a specialist in public record laws, told the newspaper. "Those are public records and … Galveston can’t destroy records that are part of a publicly funded document. And Wuhan sure as hell can’t ask Galveston to destroy its records.”

In a statement, UTMB spokesman Chris Smith Gonzalez told the Chronicle that the university "has not been asked to destroy any documents nor would UTMB follow through with such a request.”

“As a government-funded entity, UTMB complies with all applicable public information law obligations, including the preservation of all documentation of its research and findings,“ he said.

The university added that it does not plan to renew the agreement with the Wuhan lab.

The language of the agreement with the Galveston lab raises questions about the Wuhan Institute of Virology's commitment to transparency and potential willingness to delete data on the orders of Chinese Communist Party authorities.

Chinese government officials removed genetic data from 22,000 virus samples from an internet database in September 2019 and has since refused to turn over data, frustrating scientists and U.S. intelligence officials investigating the origins of the pandemic. In June 2021, an American scientist named Dr. Jesse Bloom published research that showed early COVID-19 virus samples from the Wuhan seafood market — where the first major outbreak of the virus was reported — were not fully representative of the viruses actually present in Wuhan at the time. Scientists said that Bloom's work suggested COVID-19 had been spreading in Wuhan earlier than Chinese officials claimed and called for greater transparency from China.

Bloom also discovered that the Chinese scientists had asked an NIH database to remove viral sequences from its database and that the government complied with their request. NIH later confirmed this to the Telegraph.

Dr. Zhengli Shi, the lead researcher at the Wuhan lab, has previously denied accusations from Western bio-security experts that her lab deleted records relevant to the origins of COVID-19.

“Even if we gave them all the records, they would still say we have hidden something or we have destroyed the evidence,” she told MIT Technology Review in an interview, calling the accusations "baseless and appalling."

Scientists are divided on the origins of COVID-19, with most believing that the virus naturally evolved, although a lab-leak origin has not been ruled out. The Chinese government's lack of transparency is obstructing the truth.