House’s Covid committee investigation struggles to overcome polarizing politics

CNN —

The partisan politics that have surrounded the federal and local responses to the Covid-19 pandemic continue to overshadow the committee aimed at examining – and learning from – the government’s response to the disease since the investigation’s start last year.

Rep. Brad Wenstrup, a doctor who chairs the committee looking into the Covid response, told CNN he wants his probe to be nonpartisan, but the Ohio Republican struggles against the polarizing political climate.

Lawmakers on the small panel – the House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic – have found glimmers of bipartisanship agreement and even uncovered new insights behind some of the early health guidance, but with hearings devolving into traded barbs, lawmakers are wondering whether apolitical aspirations are possible.

At issue is a fundamental disagreement over how to approach the investigation, which has become a microcosm of the divisive scars left by the deadly pandemic.

Republicans, led by Wenstrup, argue their focus should remain on the origins of Covid-19 and public health officials’ initial guidance – and want to leave former President Donald Trump out of the equation when it comes to finger-pointing.

“I don’t want to get into that,” Wenstrup said when asked by CNN whether the former president played a part in undermining trust in public health officials during the pandemic.

Democrats, guided by Rep. Raul Ruiz of California, who is also a physician, have implored Republicans to investigate equally the possibility that Covid-19 originated from a lab leak or an animal origin and prioritize future preparedness instead of searching for a conspiracy and attacking the scientists and public health officials at the