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The House Select Subcommittee on the pandemic on Wednesday held a hearing on “Investigating the Origins of COVID-19” to gather facts about the origination of the virus that has claimed nearly seven million lives globally, including more than one million in the United States.

Several witnesses explained how the science, facts, and evidence strongly point to a lab leak in Wuhan.

Yet The New York Times reported that the GOP-led subcommittee “underscored just how difficult it might be to turn up conclusive evidence” that COVID originated in a Chinese lab, not to mention the assertion by some that the ChiComs intentionally released the virus in an effort to destroy the economies of countries not named China. Check it out:

The first hearing of a House panel charged with investigating the origins of the pandemic underscored just how difficult it might be to turn up conclusive evidence.

The hearing produced no new evidence but plenty of political theater, and it made clear just how difficult it might be to turn up conclusive evidence about whether the virus escaped from a lab or spilled over from animals to humans naturally.

It is a question worth answering, said Representative Ami Bera, Democrat of California, a doctor who serves on the subcommittee and said he was agnostic on the issue.

Hence the NYT’s headline:

Republicans Push Lab Leak Theory on Covid’s Origins, but Lack ‘Smoking Gun’

So why would a legacy-media newspaper run an article with the above headline? It’s “almost” as if the once-vaunted New York Times is flying wingman for Anthony Fauci and the ChiComs, is it not?

Look, I get the “liberal rag” reputation of today’s NYT, but still — does a time or event ever come when an American newspaper either just sits this one out, or even plays for the home team? Moreover, COVID has killed Americans of all political stripes, ethnicities, and skin colors.

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, a fierce critic of China, wasn’t buying what the NYT was selling, tweeting:

The Chinese Communist Party destroyed evidence so there may never be a “smoking gun.”

But all the available evidence points to a lab leak.

There’s a reason why the CCP covered this up.

The question is, why the cover-up?

The Chinese Communist Party destroyed evidence so there may never be a "smoking gun."

But all the available evidence points to a lab leak.

There's a reason why the CCP covered this up. pic.twitter.com/DZBe7VBDi5

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) March 9, 2023

In addition, as my colleague Susie Moore reported on Wednesday, the hearing did, in fact, reaffirm the Wuhan lab leak theory, as well as media malfeasance by refusing to report accurately on the lab leak theory, as demonstrated with the recent NYT piece, above.

RedState has written extensively on the likelihood that the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan and the reluctance of the mainstream/legacy media to delve into that possibility, as well as the extraordinary lengths the government and Big Tech went to in order to suppress discussion of the topic.

Just for fun, consider the following February 2020 New York Times headline:

Senator Tom Cotton Repeats Fringe Theory of Coronavirus Origins

“Fringe theory.” The Times observed, at the time:

Scientists have dismissed suggestions that the Chinese government was behind the outbreak, but it’s the kind of tale that gains traction among those who see China as a threat.

The rumor appeared shortly after the new coronavirus struck China and spread almost as quickly: that the outbreak now afflicting people around the world had been manufactured by the Chinese government.

The conspiracy theory lacks evidence …

Yet, as I reported at the top, The Times in the Wednesday article pointed to the observations of Democrat Ami Bera that the origin of the virus is a question worth answering.

Assigning blame is not going to bring back seven million people. But it might prevent another seven million deaths if we understand what happened.

We’re talking about the very essence of science and scientific methodology. In October 2020, Scientific American observed:

[D]oubt in science is a feature, not a bug. Indeed, the paradox is that science, when properly functioning, questions accepted facts and yields both new knowledge and new questions—not certainty.

Doubt does not create trust, nor does it help public understanding. So why should people trust a process that seems to require a troublesome state of uncertainty without always providing solid solutions?

Embattled Dr.  Fauci — AKA: “I am the science” — was unavailable for comment.

The Bottom Line

The left told us the science was “settled” on COVID — until science flew in the face of the narrative of Anthony Fauci and the Democrat Party. Imagine if scientists had in 1950 declared that science was “settled” on polio. The what-if scenario spans not only the medical profession; it’s applicable to virtually everything that exists.

Yet, the Democrat Party, The New York Times, and countless others on the left continue to attack those who disagree with the ill-founded notion that the deadly COVID virus couldn’t have been intentionally created, nor that it escaped from a virology institute in Communist China.

That is a profound and ominous threat. What comes next from the left in defense of China?

While Fauci has undoubtedly been motivated by self-preservation, as many of his early COVID declarations, some of which he’s twisted or blatantly lied about, have been proved incorrect. Moreover, we’ve learned that Fauci himself was up to his eyeballs in complicity.

But the notion that the Democrat Party and left-wing media continue to fly wingman for the ChiComs, even in the aftermath of losing more than a million Americans to the pandemic, is almost beyond belief.