In testimony before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on Wednesday, former Centers for Disease Control and Protection Director Robert Redfield confirmed that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases had deliberately tried to shut down debate about the lab leak theory.
Lawmakers focused on a Jan. 31, 2020, email from Scripps Research Institute virologist Dr. Kristian Andersen to Fauci in which Andersen wrote he and several of his colleagues believed “some of COVID-19’s features look possibly engineered.”
The following day, Fauci and then-National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins organized a conference call with at least 11 virologists including Andersen, according to a March 5 House Subcommittee memo. It stated, “New evidence released by the Select Subcommittee today suggests that Dr. Fauci ‘prompted’ the drafting of a publication that would ‘disprove’ the lab leak theory, the authors of this paper skewed available evidence to achieve that goal.”
In January 2022, Fox News obtained notes from the call that revealed Fauci’s deliberate decision to suppress the lab leak theory of origin. His stated reason was concern over “how the public would react to news of possible Chinese government involvement.”
According to Fox, Collins worried that “‘science and international harmony’ could be harmed and accusations of China’s involvement could distract top researchers.”
Within days of this call, several of the virologists, including Andersen, wrote a paper that supported the zoonotic theory of origin.
Fox noted that “private communications show that various drafts were sent to Fauci and Collins for approval.”
The paper was published in Nature Medicine on Feb. 16, 2020.
In August 2020, Andersen announced his lab received an $8.9 million research grant from NIAID.
Redfield, a member of the coronavirus task force that was created on Jan. 29, 2020, testified that because he was an advocate of the lab leak theory, Fauci excluded him from the pivotal Feb. 1, 2020 conference call, and from all communications with the virologist network.
(Highlights from the hearing can be viewed in the videos below.)
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) March 8, 2023
Dr. Kristian Andersen Pulled a 180 on His Stance on the Origins of COVID in Just 4 Days
January 31, 2020: "Features (potentially) look engineered," and the genome is inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory."
February 4, 2020 (After Speaking w/ Fauci): "The main… https://t.co/9F42zEHR46 pic.twitter.com/AZRmwcDY9f
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) March 8, 2023
On Thursday, Fauci was interviewed by Fox News host Neil Cavuto. He said:
You know Neil, I really feel badly about that because I know Bob a long time. He is totally and unequivocally incorrect. … I had nothing to do with who would be on that call. That call was organized by a group of evolutionary virologists in order to discuss the possibility that this might actually be a virus that was actually engineered. …
As Fauci continues his denial, Cavuto interrupts to ask if he thinks Redfield should have been on the call.
Retrospectfully, it would have been okay to have him on the call, of course, but I didn’t put him [on] or take him off and it’s really disturbing that in a public hearing – a Congressional hearing, he makes an accusatory statement that has no basis whatsoever in reality …
Then, he thinks he has the ultimate argument to prove that Redfield is wrong.
He said, in his own mind, that he was kept out because he was of the opinion that this might be a lab leak. Half the people on the call were of the opinion that it might be a lab leak. So, his rationale of why he thought he was excluded is an invalid rationale.
The point Fauci is missing is that those who began the call thinking the virus had come from a lab leak suddenly reversed their opinions entirely. What changed their minds?
Cavuto played a clip from Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and asked Fauci to comment. Jordan said:
If it may have been a lab, may have been nature … then why did Dr. Fauci work so hard for just one of those theories?
Three days after they say it came from a lab, they changed their position and the only intervening event is a conference call with Dr. Fauci and Dr. Collins, again a call that Mr. Redfield was not allowed to be on … and then three months later, shazam, they get $9 million bucks from Dr. Fauci. Well, isn’t that something.
Fauci replied: “I almost have to laugh at that. Neil, I mean that’s totally bizarre. …”
Cavuto wasn’t laughing. In fact, he looked very skeptical.
Former White House Chief Medical Advisor and Former NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci joins Neil to discuss the allegations in COVID origins probe pic.twitter.com/1oWy7Dsf2L
— Neil Cavuto (@TeamCavuto) March 9, 2023
The House Subcommittee will no doubt ask Andersen and the other virologists on that call to testify in the weeks to come. And then they will call on Fauci to explain what has become increasingly clear to all of us. At a time of great national peril, he was more interested in covering up the fact that U.S. taxpayer dollars had funded dangerous gain of function research at the Wuhan lab than he was in helping Americans navigate the deadly pandemic.
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