EcoHealth Alliance — the nonprofit that infamously funneled taxpayer funds into the Wuhan Institute of Virology for bat-based coronavirus research — was given a shocking loophole in Congress’s omnibus spending package to receive money for research in China supported by the country’s communist leadership. Why? Our government won’t tell us.

Back in December, Congress inserted a clause in its omnibus appropriations act that finally defunded the Wuhan Institute of Virology and appeared to defund other similar research in China, but the latter section appears to be hollow. While EcoHealth has been barred from feeding tax dollars directly into the Wuhan Institute of Virology, it still has the power to potentially direct taxpayer dollars into China:

SEC. 8143. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to fund any work to be performed by EcoHealth Alliance, Inc. in China on research supported by the government of China unless the Secretary of Defense determines that a waiver to such prohibition is in the national security interests of the United States.

What “national security interest” could there possibly be in EcoHealth Alliance directing funds into China for research supported by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)? The Federalist reached out to the Department of Defense and asked that very question but never heard back. This begs another interesting question: What kind of CCP-supported research are our tax dollars going toward that is so secretive the American people can’t be privy to it?