Senator Grassley. (photo from Senate Budget Committee hearing)
Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is applauding President Joe Biden’s signing of legislation this week that orders federal intelligence officials to declassify information on the origins of COVID-19.
“This is one step to make sure that there’s more accountability with what our government knows about it that people haven’t been told yet,” Grassley says, “at least we’ll be able to make that known to the American people.” Grassley, a Republican, hesitated to say if we’ll ever know the full story of how the pandemic began, but he says this is a big move forward in determining any possible links to China.
“Whether that will tell us whether it came from the Wuhan lab or someplace else, which, by the way, I believe it did come from the Wuhan lab, but whether it did or not, we may never find that out from the Chinese,” Grassley says, “but we’re going to at least know what the American government knows.”
Grassley notes that this is so-called Sunshine Week, when we honor the principle of bringing secretive government actions out into the open. “The public’s business ought to be public,” Grassley says, “and transparency and in our government brings accountability and accountability in this area is very, very important.” Grassley says he voted for the bill, which passed both chambers of Congress unanimously.