Rep. McCaul Accuses Chinese Communist Party of 'Worst Cover-up' Over COVID-19

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) gives a thumbs up during a speech on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 18, 2016. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Rep. Michael McCaul (R‑Texas) has accused the Chinese Communist Party of covering up and controlling investigations during the initial days of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in large-scale death and destruction.

"It's clear that the Chinese Communist Party were engaged in what I call the worst cover-up in human history, causing economic and death and destruction," McCaul said in America's Newsroom on Fox News on Thursday.

The congressman from Texas, who also serves on the House's Foreign Affairs Committee, said the Chinese regime waited six days in January to warn of the likelihood of a pandemic and instead went on to detain eight doctors who sounded the alarm about the lethal viral disease.

"After that point in time, they went into the laboratories and destroyed lab samples in an attempt to cover-up and also control the investigation," said McCaul and further went ahead to give a timeline of what happened after that.

"Then you go into the January timeframe, it becomes very interesting because at that time you had not only the doctors but Taiwan and the WHO medical personnel in Wuhan warning the WHO. And now we just found out an internal Chinese Communist Party memo from within in, in January, at very high levels warning that this was, in fact, human-to-human transmission," said McCaul.

The Congressman said the WHO, instead of issuing an international public health emergency, decided to keep quiet, and at that time China was also celebrating the spring festival.

"Five million people leave Wuhan, travel throughout China and then millions of people from China travel internationally. This could have been stopped, this could have been contained, but instead, we now have a global pandemic," said McCaul.

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would halt funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) over its handling of the CCP virus pandemic while his administration reviews its response to the global crisis.

Trump, at a White House news conference, said the WHO had “failed in its basic duty and it must be held accountable.” He said the group had promoted China’s “disinformation” about the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus, that likely led to a wider outbreak of the virus than otherwise would have occurred.

The United States is the biggest overall donor to the Geneva-based WHO, contributing more than $400 million in 2019, roughly 15 percent of its budget.

The Epoch Times web staff contributed to this report.