Nothing like rewarding scientists from a hostile foreign nation for creating catastrophe! According to documentation obtained by Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the U.S. government (NIH) didn't just fund bat coronavirus research at the Wuhan lab leading up to the leak of COVID-19. The government gave another grant for work with the Wuhan lab in July 2020, long after COVID-19 likely leaked from the lab where it was probably created.
There is a lot of significant and interesting information in the Judicial Watch press release about the documentation. This includes EcoHealth Alliance's initial "Application for Federal Assistance" submitted on June 5, 2013, which said it aimed to create mutant bat viruses and see how coronaviruses infect humans.
To understand the risk of zoonotic CoV [coronavirus] emergence, we propose to examine 1) the transmission dynamics of bat-CoVs across the human-wildlife interface; and 2) how this process is affected by CoV evolutionary potential, and how it might force CoV evolution. We will assess the nature and frequency of contact among animals and people in two critical human-animal interfaces: live animal markets in China and people who are highly exposed to bats in rural China.
I'm pretty sure that "CoV [Coronavirus] evolutionary potential" is a euphemism for coronovirus gain-of-function research -- we're going to serially run this virus through a bunch of hosts attempting to evolve it through mutations.
The various parts of the projects examined by Judicial Watch include DNA sequencing, "testing predictions of CoV inter-species transmission," testing viruses of "varying pathogenicity" on "humanized mice," and "the infectious clone of WIV1 was successfully constructed using reverse genetic methods." Some scientists previously argued that COVID-19 was created in a lab and then reverse engineered to make the virus seem naturally evolved from bats.
No wonder Fauci and Collins were so determined to coerce scientists into denying it could have come from a lab.
A document dated July 13, 2020, detailed NIH funding (or rather funding from NIH's NIAID, then headed by Anthony Fauci) and other information for a project titled "Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence." It was for Peter Daszak's EcoHealth. NIH increased funding to EcoHealth Alliance, including providing "funds for activity with Wuhan Institute of Virology in the amount of $76,301." How can NIH possibly excuse this July 2020 grant?
More at the link.