Feds' botched monkey probe gives China research edge, DOJ hiding evidence: lawmakers, watchdog

The National Institutes of Health isn't the only federal agency facilitating a hostile nation's vaccine development, but Americans may be surprised to learn the identity of another.

Prodded by animal rights activists, the Interior Department's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service went rogue in an ongoing, five-year investigation of illegal wildlife exports, with little to show for it except improving China's geopolitical position in medical research after U.S. taxpayer dollars funded Chinese research that may have unleashed SARS-CoV-2 on the world.

That's the narrative peddled by House Natural Resources Committee Republicans, who last week held an oversight hearing on USFWS's "Operation Long Tail Liberation," and watchdog group Protect the Public's Trust, which filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department on Friday for allegedly stonewalling and disingenuously denying its related requests.

DOJ "incredibly" claimed that PPT was asking for records "on" a lawyer when the watchdog sought DOJ communications "to and from" that person, the watchdog said in a press release.

"This is the same sort of absurd assertion" the FBI "unsuccessfully attempted to employ to deny PPT records" on the DOJ's component's involvement in social media censorship as suggested by the Twitter Files, but the bureau "eventually relented" and agreed to start producing documents in that case, PPT said.

"In the aftermath of COVID-19, it’s hard to imagine a U.S. government agency handing our medical research capabilities directly to China," said PPT Director Michael Chamberlain, who was special assistant to former President Trump's Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

He blasted the feds for a what he considered a "ridiculous, legally dubious cloak and dagger operation on foreign soil using a paid informant," which spurned coordination with other federal agencies, records of which are being improperly hidden from the public. USFWS gave taxpayers a single prosecution and acquittal of a "minor Cambodian forestry official." 

PPT said the informant, connected to USFWS through an animal rights group, "stole a visitor log, installed spyware on a computer and monitored the comings and goings at the facility’s entrance, and performed other possibly illegal acts."

Chamberlain has previously warned DOJ is working to "Trump-proof" the department in the event the GOP presidential nominee wins the election by "using a hiring authority that's outside of the normal competitive process for hiring career officials," hamstringing Donald Trump's ability to control his own administration.

The controversy has to do with long-tailed macaque monkeys, which People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and similar groups have long sought to ban from U.S. research. They were in especially high demand during the early COVID pandemic.

PETA urged USFWS in June to "stop dragging its feet and take action" on the former's rulemaking petition to add long-tailed macaques – currently "threatened" – to the Endangered Species Act's protection list, in light of an estimated 80% drop in their population in 35 years. 

The monkeys' population in Cambodia, the target of the USFWS investigation, has plunged to an estimated 75,000, down from 3 million less than 15 years ago, PETA said.

Natural Resources Committee Republicans said USFWS's investigation started in 2017, probing whether "wild-caught" macaques "falsely labeled as captive-bred" were being exported to the U.S. 

China has banned their exports for research purposes since 2020.

Without notifying the Cambodian government or local law enforcement, "disregarding proper procedure," the agency paid a Chinese national $225,000 "to gather information surreptitiously in Cambodia" and helped the informant and his family get visas, transportation to the U.S., housing and jobs, committee GOP leaders said.

"Special permits are required to import long-tailed macaques into the U.S." because of their listing in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna appendices, the hearing memo said. Wild-caught macaques are legal for trading if captured "with the local government's permission."

CITES permits are now being denied to U.S companies to import captive-bred macaques, reportedly because USFWS questions the "legal acquisition" of their parental stock from Cambodia, even when the agency previously authorized it, the memo said.

It warns that "China will dominate the trade of [non-human primates], lead the world in medical research and testing, and consequently control the pipeline for new medicines, vaccines, and treatments," if the U.S. lacks a strong industry to supply them.

USFWS Director Martha Williams told the committee the operation was approved "in support" of President Trump's executive order on "Transnational Criminal Organizations and Preventing International Trafficking." She noted it led to the indictment of eight individuals, including two Cambodian officials, without acknowledging the prosecution failed entirely.

Her agency keeps meeting with other agencies to discuss "alleged trafficking of long-tailed macaques and falsification of CITES documents," and discussing "shipments and permits with importers on a case-by-case." Williams emphasized there was no national ban on NHP imports.

PETA crowed after the hearing that the witness for monkey dealer Worldwide Primates "made stunning revelation after stunning revelation," especially that "U.S. experimenters knowingly use monkeys captured in the wild." Such a practice is "widely known to compromise, if not entirely negate, research results," PETA said.

PPT's FOIA lawsuit says its first request sought nine years of communications involving nearly 20 DOJ officials in the Long Tail investigation, and communications among those officials and employees of PETA, Born Free, the Center for Biological Diversity, Harvard University and its Animal Law and Policy Clinic Director Mary Hollingsworth, and a Gmail address apparently associated with Southern Illinois University and "primates."

DOJ sent the watchdog "mislabeled" records that were actually in response to a different FOIA request, however, and hasn't responded further since June 12, PPT said.

The watchdog sent a second FOIA request a few days after the first for the same kind of records but involving a different group of DOJ officials – five specifically named and "All Deputy Assistant Attorneys General."

DOJ hasn't responded to the request pertaining to everyone but Hollingsworth since May 21, and it denied the Hollingsworth request May 22 on the basis that it sought "law enforcement records" on her – an "unreasonable misunderstanding of PPT’s request," PPT said. The agency hasn't responded to its appeal beyond acknowledging it was filed.

DOJ didn't answer a query for its response to the lawsuit. USFWS didn't respond when asked for its response to the congressional hearing.