GOP Letter To DOJ On EcoHealth Alliance

October 27, 2021
The Honorable Merrick B. Garland

Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530
Dear Attorney General Garland:
We have been investigating whether U.S. taxpayer dollars funded dangerous research
into deadly pathogens in Wuhan, China. For more than a year, the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases (NIAID), have denied using taxpayer money to fund this type of research. However, a
recent admission from the NIH reveals that EcoHealth Alliance, Inc. (EcoHealth), a NIAID grant
recipient, may have violated federal law in its taxpayer-funded work on deadly pathogens. 1 We
accordingly refer this matter to the Justice Department for investigation.
On June 1, 2014, EcoHealth received a $3.7 million dollar grant from NIAID, entitled
“Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” 2 Through this grant, EcoHealth sent
more than $600,000 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in Wuhan, China. Further,
pursuant to this grant, EcoHealth was required to report to NIH and “immediately stop all
experiments” if it created a virus that showed evidence of viral growth 1,000 percent that of the
original virus. 3 Even if EcoHealth did not immediately report an experiment that met these
parameters as required by the grant, EcoHealth would have to submit its annual progress report
by September 30, 2019. EcoHealth failed on both counts.
On October 20, 2021, we received a letter from Dr. Lawrence Tabak, Principal Deputy
Director of the NIH. According to Dr. Tabak, EcoHealth “failed” to properly and promptly
report an experiment that violated the terms of the grant. 4 The grant required EcoHealth to report
any experiment that creates, intentionally or otherwise, a new virus that is 1,000 percent more
virulent than its progenitor. 5 In one experiment, EcoHealth did just that but subsequently failed
to report it. EcoHealth subsequently failed to file an annual report until August 3, 2021, almost
two years after it was required to do so. 6
1
Letter from Lawrence A. Tabak, Principal Deputy Director, U.S. Nat’l Inst. Of Health, to Hon. James Comer,
Ranking Member, H. Comm. on Oversight & Reform (Oct. 20, 2021).
2
Project Grant, Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Research, EcoHealth Alliance, Inc. (June 1, 2014).
3
Letter from Hon. Francis Collins, Dir., Nat’l Insts. Of Health, to Hon. James Comer, Ranking Member, H. Comm.
on Oversight & Reform (July 28, 2021).
4
Letter from Lawrence A. Tabak, supra note 1.
5
Id.
6
Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence, 5RO1AI110964-05 (June 6, 2018 – May 31, 2019).
The Honorable Merrick B. Garland
October 27, 2021
Page 2
The revelation in Dr. Tabak’s letter raises the prospect about whether EcoHealth violated
18 U.S.C. § 1031 and committed a major fraud against the United States. Section 1031 states, in
relevant part, “[w]hoever knowingly executes, or attempts to execute, any scheme or artifice with
the intent to defraud the United States; or to obtain money or property by means of false or
fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, in any grant . . . if the value of such grant . . .
is $1,000,000 or more shall . . . be fined not more than $1,000,000, or imprisoned not more than
10 years, or both.” 7 The section’s prohibition includes “misrepresenting a project’s status to
continue receiving funds.” 8
Between September 30, 2019 and August 3, 2021, EcoHealth received $21,648,574 in
grant funds from U.S. taxpayers that the company may not have received if it had timely
disclosed to NIH that it had created a virus that would trigger the cessation of its experiments. 9
The fact that EcoHealth received more than $21 million during this period shows that the
company had a clear financial incentive to violate the terms of its grant by failing to stop its
experiments. In addition, EcoHealth’s failure to provide the required reporting to NIH for nearly
two years—despite a requirement in the grant to do so annually—suggests that EcoHealth
knowingly withheld information from NIH in an effort to misrepresent the project’s status.
Based on the information available to us, we respectfully request that the Department of
Justice investigate whether EcoHealth violated federal law by misrepresenting the status of its
project to NIAID or NIH. Please respond by November 3, 2021 to inform us whether the
Department intends to investigate this matter. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
____________________________ ____________________________
James Comer Jim Jordan
Ranking Member Ranking Member
Committee on Oversight and Reform Committee on the Judiciary
cc: The Honorable Carolyn B. Maloney, Chairwoman

Committee on Oversight and Reform
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chairman

Committee on the Judiciary
7
18 U.S.C. § 1031.
8
Grant Fraud Responsibilities, Grants.gov (last accessed Oct. 21, 2021).
9
USASpending.gov (last accessed Oct. 21, 2021),
https://www.usaspending.gov/search/?hash=d664bf197193e61d56504abf646e5410.

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October 27, 2021

The Honorable Merrick B. Garland

Dear Attorney General Garland:

cc: The Honorable Carolyn B. Maloney, Chairwoman

The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chairman

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