State Department Spokesman Matt Miller found himself in hot water during a press briefing in September 2023 when confronted by reporter Sam Husseini about the funding provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to China for gain-of-function research on coronaviruses.
Husseini asked Miller to clarify how much funding USAID had sent to work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its collaborator Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina.
“How much money went from USAID to this to the work at Wuhan and to their collaborator Ralph Barrick at the University of North Carolina to create, to collect and make coronaviruses that are weaponized, that are more deadly,” asked Husseini.
Miller was elusive in his response, stating, “First of all reject the implicit accusation in that question. And I do not have at my fingertips the particular details.”
Hellbound and Down 