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WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, during a full committee hearing on Tuesday discussed the Chinese Communist Party’s culpability in allowing the coronavirus outbreak to become a global pandemic and examined legal actions the U.S. and international community could take to hold accountable the Chinese officials directly responsible for endangering millions of lives.
ON CHINA’S CULPABILITY:
“I believe the communist government of China bears enormous responsibility, and an enormous culpability for this global pandemic we’re seeing. China’s conduct can be understood at two different phases. Number one, China’s conduct concerning the origin of this pandemic. And, number two, China’s conduct after the beginning of this outbreak.
ON THE INITIAL CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK IN WUHAN, CHINA:
“There are a lot of questions that have not yet been answered. What we do know, is that in Wuhan, China, where this pandemic began, there were not one, but two, state-owned and state-controlled laboratories that were both studying, not just coronaviruses, but coronaviruses derived from bats. From a species of bats that is not found within 800 miles of Wuhan – the same species of bat that now the scientists tell us they believe this virus may have originated with. […]
“We also know that prior to this pandemic, there were multiple U.S. State Department cables raising concerns that these labs had exceptionally shoddy security protocols. And raising concern specifically, that because of their poor security, there was a real risk of a global pandemic originating from these labs. Now, as I noted, we don’t know that for sure. Part of the reason we don’t know [that] for sure is the Chinese government’s behavior after the outbreak was to go into all of these labs and destroy all their prior samples. Which I have to tell you, having litigated a lot of cases, when you see someone destroying evidence and trying to hide the scientific record, it raises a pretty strong inference that the evidence they’re destroying shows something they don’t want people to know.”
ON THE COVERUP THAT HELPED FUEL A GLOBAL PANDEMIC & ENDANGER MILLIONS OF LIVES WORLDWIDE:
“We know that the communist government of China actively covered up and silenced early intervention to stop this pandemic. There were heroic Chinese physicians, whistleblowers who stood up and blew the whistle on this pandemic. Who stood up and said, ‘This is really dangerous. We need to stop it.’ And the Chinese Communist government, they came in they arrested the whistleblowers, they silenced them, they punished them.
“Had the Chinese government behaved like any responsible government, had they come in, sent in health professionals to Wuhan, and quarantined the infected people, there is a very real possibility that this could have been contained as a regional outbreak rather than a global pandemic. But instead, because of the lies of the Chinese Communist government, because of the censorship, because of the cover up, we have today over 474,000 people who have died worldwide, we have over 123,00 Americans who have died. And the Chinese Communist government bears direct responsibility for those deaths and for the trillions of dollars of economic devastation that has flowed.”
Watch Sen. Cruz’s remarks and full line of questioning at today’s hearing here.
Sen. Cruz is leading the charge in the Senate to fundamentally reassess the U.S.-China relationship, counter Chinese censorship, and hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for the coronavirus coverup. In May, Sen. Cruz introduced three bills to counter Chinese propaganda and hold China accountable for the types of medical and political censorship that helped fuel the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Learn more about Sen. Cruz’s comprehensive push to counter Chinese propaganda here.
Earlier this week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rejected the application for a license enabling a radio station secretly “used and maintained” by Phoenix Radio. This comes after Sen. Cruz introduced the Blocking Evasive Attempts to Manipulate Signals Act or BEAMS Act, legislation to prevent the Chinese Communist Party from exploiting FCC loopholes to propagandize to Americans from radio stations in Mexico or Canada, including through stations entangled with Chinese state-owned media outlets such as Phoenix TV.
WATCH: Sen. Cruz on Senate Floor: We Need To Stand Up & Address the Real Threat China Poses
WATCH: Coronavirus Coverup: How Chinese Censorship Led to a Global Pandemic
