A 2020 GOP strategy memo urged Republicans to embrace the lab leak and accuse their detractors of being soft on China. Jha’s remark on the unproven COVID lab leak narrative, which came days before the contempt vote, helped fuel that media frenzy. “After years of debate, former COVID response coordinator acknowledges pandemic source ‘probably a lab leak,’” read the Fox News headline. “In contrast we don’t have a single paper on lab leak nor [gain-of-function research], most likely bc it never occurred,” Hotez continued. “And [by the way] there’s a major coronavirus virus research institute in every major Chinese city established after SARS-1 in 2002-2003.”