A joint letter written by Senator Martha McSally, R-AZ, and Congressman Matt Gaetz, R-FL, was sent to Congressional leaders Tuesday urging them to “ensure funding is cut off” to the Wuhan Virology Institute, which is currently being investigated for potentially being the source of the coronavirus.

Taxpayer $ shouldn't be sent to a dangerous Chinese state-run bio-agent lab that lacks any meaningful oversight from U.S. authorities & is run by adversaries w/ a history of lab leaks.

I led a letter w/ @RepMattGaetz to Senate & House leadership to ensure this funding is cut off pic.twitter.com/528Q05Qac4

— Martha McSally (@MarthaMcSally) April 22, 2020

“We were troubled by recent media reports that the National Institute of Health (NIH) has been funding secretive and dangerous laboratory research at the WIV for many years,” the two lawmakers wrote. “According to NIH’s website, the WIV is currently authorized by the NIH to receive taxpayer funding for animal research.”

Questions first began to surface after The Washington Post’s Josh Rogin wrote of State Department cables concerning the lab’s inadequate safety procedures and warning of a potential “SARS-like pandemic” stemming from bats, in January 2018, which U.S. Embassy officials in Beijing discovered two years before the coronavirus pandemic began. The lab is a biosafety level 4 facility, which means it conducts experiments on some of the world’s deadliest viruses such as Ebola.

Multiple sources later confirmed to Fox News that the virus likely came from the Wuhan lab and was used “as part of China’s attempt to demonstrate that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal to or greater than the capabilities of the United States.” Days later, U.S. officials confirmed to the news site that a “full-scale investigation” into whether the virus leaked from the lab was underway.

The recent letter from Capitol Hill echoes the concerns of the intelligence community. Moreover, McSally and Gaetz are encouraging Congressional action in an attempt to further divest U.S. taxpayer dollars from the Chinese government and their nefarious operations.

They wrote, “We’re sure you agree that taxpayers’ money should not be sent to a dangerous Chinese state-run bio-agent laboratory that lacks meaningful oversight from U.S. authorities and is run by adversaries with a history of lab leaks, including SARS, and deception about the causes and extent of deadly disease outbreaks, including COVID-19. Although President Trump has stated that his administration ‘will end that grant quickly,’ we hope to ensure that WIV will not receive federal funds in any future spending package.”