Everyone knows the Biden administration is incompetent. But this goes beyond incompetence and into gross negligence.
Because President Biden missed a deadline that will haunt him for years.
Back in March of this year, Congress unanimously passed a law called the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 that required the executive branch to declassify any intelligence that the U.S. has on the origins of COVID-19.
The law gave the Joe Biden administration 90 days to declassify the materials from the time Biden signed the bill.
That deadline came and went this weekend with no response from the Biden administration at all.
House Republican Mike Gallagher (R-WI) accused Joe Biden of ignoring the “overwhelming bipartisan consensus.”
“Congress overwhelmingly passed legislation requiring the administration to declassify all relevant intelligence around the origins of COVID-19,” Gallagher shared with the media.
“Biden cannot continue to ignore this overwhelming bipartisan consensus,” Gallagher continued, adding that “Congress must use every tool at its disposal to enforce this law and ensure the president makes this information available to the public.”
The law, signed by President Joe Biden to be clear, required the Director of National Intelligence to declassify the COVID-19 materials and their connection with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The law says the director, Avril Haines, was to “declassify any and all information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin” and any “activities performed by the Wuhan Institute of Virology with or on behalf of the People’s Liberation Army.”
The law also required the Biden White House to give Congress any intel that they had about the “researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who fell ill in autumn 2019.”
Back in March, Joe Biden shared in an official White House statement that he would be “pleased” to sign the bill and release the intel about COVID-19.
Now 90 days later, there’s crickets. The law has not been complied with and the hangup is unclear as well.
The signed bill did give the executive branch the opportunity to redact sections of classified materials to protect “methods” and “sources.”
But there’s been no announcement from Avril Haines that the redactions have been the hangup or that the declassification is in process.
U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) sent off a letter to the Biden White House as the deadline approached telling him to act quickly to obey the law.
“That deadline, June 18, 2023, is fast approaching,” Hawley wrote to Joe Biden.
“Your Administration has not yet provided any indication of when the relevant material will be declassified,” he added.
Senator Hawley also reminded the Biden administration that they did not have the authority to blanket redact anything they want in the name of “national security” because the law gave them a very specific authority to redact for the purposes of protecting “sources and methods.”
At this time, there’s been no statement issued from the executive branch on when the American people can expect the Biden administration to comply with the law.
Stay tuned to the Federalist Wire.
