Dr Anthony Fauci evaded more than 100 questions about Covid, the lab leak theory and his ties to Wuhan during a landmark Congressional hearing Monday.
House Republicans who quizzed the ex-White House advisor said he ‘played semantics’ to avoid conceding that he funded dangerous research in China that is feared to have started the pandemic.
Dr Fauci, 82, also admitted that he signed off on millions of dollars worth of grants without reviewing the proposals – and appeared to admit his agency had little oversight of the foreign labs it bankrolled.
The all-day probe on Monday will be followed by another seven hours of questioning behind closed doors today.
Dr Fauci is accused of funding risky experiments believed to have started the pandemic and suppressing the lab leak theory to silence his critics.
Dr Fauci’s closed-door testimony is expected to get heated as previous hearings have. In the past, Dr Fauci has clashed with lawmakers including Sen Rand Paul of Kentucky over his perceived coverup of funding for gain of function research as well as the Covid lab leak theory
Republican Congressman Brad Wenstrup of Ohio, who is heading up the hearings, said: ‘Dr Fauci’s testimony today uncovered drastic and systemic failures in America’s public health systems.
‘Clearly, the American people and the United States government are operating with completely different expectations about the responsibilities of our public health leaders and the accountability of our public health agencies.’
According to House Select Committee on Coronavirus, Dr Fauci denied remembering key details of the response ‘more than 100 times’.
The GOP also said he backtracked on his earlier insistence that the US did not fund experiments that could make viruses more transmissible or dangerous, known as ‘gain of function’ research.
Dr Fauci’s marathon testimony has been a long time coming. The House subcommittee on the coronavirus compelled him to appear before members nearly a year ago, but the finer details were only finalized late last year.
Congress, particularly Republicans, have criticized Dr Fauci’s policies to tamp down the spread of Covid in the early days, including flip flopping advice on masks and school and business closures.
The private hearings mark Dr Fauci’s first visit to Capitol Hill since his retirement last year.
Members of the Subcommittee compiled ‘more than 200 pages of questions and approximately 100 exhibits’, including evidence such as private emails between Fauci and other scientists that showed efforts to coverup dissenting opinions about the coronavirus’ origins.
Dr Fauci privately commissioned a scientific paper that denounced the lab leak theory as a conspiracy and attacked those who subscribed to it as racists.
Dr Fauci then touted that paper to the public as evidence the virus emerged naturally without disclosing his connections to it.
Critics say his reasoning for doing so was to protect the controversial research being conducted in China.
The former White House doctor oversaw the approval of $3million in NIH grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where researchers tinkered with coronaviruses to make them more infectious to humans months before the pandemic.
That project was titled Understanding The Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence’.
In December 2022, Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth Alliance, became a whistleblower and said he believed grant funding provided to the organization by the NIH was linked to the ‘creation of SARS-CoV-2.’
Dr Huff claimed the pandemic was the result of the US government funding of dangerous genetic engineering of coronaviruses in China.
During Monday’s hearing, Dr Fauci backtracked on his earlier claims that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, which he ran from 1984 to 2022, never allocated government money to risky virus research.
He had insisted to Senators last summer that his former department ‘has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.’
Yet, recently publicized emails dated February 1, 2020 showed Fauci acknowledged that ‘scientists in Wuhan University are known to have been working on gain-of-function experiments to determine that molecular mechanisms associated with bat viruses adapting to human infection, and the outbreak originated in Wuhan.’
New emails dated February 1, 2020 show Fauci acknowledged that ‘scientists in Wuhan University are known to have been working on gain-of-function experiments to determine that molecular mechanisms associated with bat viruses adapting to human infection, and the outbreak originated in Wuhan’
He was also unable to confirm if the NIAID has protocols in place to provide the proper oversight of the labs overseas that receive federal dollars.
Rep Wenstrup said: ‘While leading the nation’s COVID-19 response and influencing public narratives, he simultaneously had no idea what was happening under his own jurisdiction at NIAID.
‘Dr Fauci signed off on all domestic and foreign research grants without reviewing the proposals and admitted that he was unaware if NIAID conducted oversight of the laboratories they fund.’
Lawmakers had compiled hundreds of pages of questions for the former White House medical advisor before going into Monday
The transcript of Dr Fauci’s first day of testimony has not been made publicly available, but given the tense tenor of past hearings before congressional committees, the meetings on Monday and Tuesday are expected to become heated.
Rep Wenstrup said: ‘I look forward to asking Dr. Fauci further questions about mandates, his role in prompting the “Proximal Origin” publication, and his policy positions related to masks and lockdowns.
‘[Tuesday’s] testimony will continue the Select Subcommittee’s effort to deliver the answers Americans demand and deserve.’
