To paraphrase someone on Twitter who is much wittier than me, the difference between a conspiracy theory and a scandal is about six months.

Six months ago, Facebook was quarantining articles that hinted that the origins of the Wuhan virus were anything other than natural. The semi-literates they employ as fact-checkers were producing tomes “debunking” any examination that the Wuhan virus might have escaped from a shoddily run lab or have been deliberately released for some reason.

We are now at a point where the working assumption of just about everyone not drawing a check from Beijing is that the Wuhan virus was engineered.

While this is a quite welcome development from the standpoint of rubbing the noses of the left and their fact-checking henchmen in their own feces, if nothing else, what comes next? In these cases, there are typically two options. Either the entire incident is whitewashed, or everyone associated with the decision is summarily executed (in a metaphorical way, though given the body count here, a Nuremberg-style trial and mass execution would not, in my view, be out of bounds).

Federal government investigators said Tuesday that they are launching a review into how the National Institutes of Health manages and monitors its grant program, which likely includes money connected to a Wuhan lab that GOP lawmakers have been scrutinizing.

Republicans have zeroed in on NIH’s relationship with EcoHealth Alliance, the global nonprofit that helped fund some research at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, to attack Dr. Anthony Fauci and score political points.

…

Roughly 80% of NIH funding goes to supporting research grants, including grants to foreign organizations. According to the work plan on the review, it will look at how these grants are monitored and making sure the recipient’s use and management of NIH grant funds is in accordance with federal requirements.

One NIH official, who spoke under the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the review openly, called it “political” in nature but believed that ultimately it would be a good thing and would clear NIH of any wrongdoing.

“It’s an opportunity to educate the public,” the official said.

Questions about the relationship between NIH and EcoHealth Alliance have grown louder after Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases within NIH, confirmed to lawmakers earlier this year that hundreds of thousands of dollars that NIH had given to the New York-based global nonprofit went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to study coronaviruses in bats.

“About $600,000 was spent over a five-year period,” Fauci said during a congressional budget hearing. “That comes to anywhere between $125 (thousand) and $150,000 per year that went to collaboration with Wuhan.”

The spin of the CNN article is that there is nothing to see here. The “NIH official,” who almost certainly is a functionary inside Fauci’s communications apparatus his National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases fiefdom, is trying to spin this as “political” as though there is nothing substantive to investigate. I think that is whistling past the graveyard. I’ve been on both ends of investigations that were spun up to appease political deities. Their purpose is never to “educate the public,” beyond giving the “public” a head they are demanding.

Back in April 2020, I was on a Zoom call where Fauci was asked about the cancellation of the EcoHealth grant that funded research in a Chinese government lab (think about that for just a minute). I couldn’t see the questioner, but the tone of their voice was incredulous, like “who do those people think they are to interfere in Holy Science.” Fauci, himself, appeared visibly hostile over having been made to cancel it.  The apparent personal relationship between Fauci and what would be a very minor grant recipient ($150K is barely a rounding error in NIAID’s annual budget) leads me to believe there is more going on here than meets the eye (read Scott Hounsell’s BREAKING: Wuhan Lab Funder Daszak Emailed Fauci, Thanking Him for Dismissing Lab Leak Theory), and an HHS investigation will cast a much-needed light where there has been an active effort to obfuscate.

I also suspect that the scope of this investigation is going to be a little more focused than just an anodyne “how the National Institutes of Health manages and monitors its grant program.”

If you’ve been following Jen Van Laar’s reporting on the Chinese defector who seems to have made the lab-leak hypothesis fit for polite conversation, you’ll recall this quote from BREAKING: Chinese Defector’s Identity Confirmed, Was Top Counterintelligence Official:

In addition, Dong has provided DIA with the following information:

• Early pathogenic studies of the virus we now know as SARS-CoV-2
• Models of predicted COVID-19 spread and damage to the US and the world
• Financial records detailing which exact organizations and governments funded the research on SARS-CoV-2 and other biological warfare research (emphasis added)
• Names of US citizens who provide intel to China
• Names of Chinese spies working in the US or attending US universities
• Financial records showing US businessmen and public officials who’ve received money from the Chinese government
• Details of meetings US government officials had (perhaps unwittingly) with Chinese spies and members of Russia’s SVR
• How the Chinese government gained access to a CIA communications system, leading to the death of dozens of Chinese people who were working with the CIA.

If my linkage is correct, then HHS already knows exactly what it is going to look for and what it is going to find.

My view is that the HHS investigation is a search for a scapegoat. Biden has no interest in protecting anyone in NIH. In fact, his interests are best served by playing the tough kid from Scranton and “getting to the bottom of it.” Internally, there is no incentive for anyone in HHS or NIH to protect either Fauci or his agency, and there will be a lot of reasons to use this investigation to settle some bureaucratic scores. There are any number of major players in HHS and NIH who would like to take Fauci down a notch or two…or three.

I think that when we finally see the results of this investigation, we will find a network of NIH grant recipients sponsoring research at universities controlled by the Chinese government. I wouldn’t be shocked to find NIH to be up to its eyeballs in chimera research like this.

I would expect Biden’s HHS to use this investigation as a tool to bash the Trump Administration for lax oversight and even directly to blame that administration for the Wuhan virus being created. But, of course, if that does happen, then the public will demand heads on pikes, and rightfully so, and the head of one particular ill-tempered and hubristic lawn gnome will be among the first to be hoisted.