By The House Oversight Committee has been busy. When it’s not been investigating the president’s pseudonyms he used to talk business with his son or uncovering how a Biden cabinet member was tipping off Hunter Biden about investigations into cheating on his taxes, the committee headed by James Comer has worked to understand Anthony Fauci’s connection to the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Wuhan, China. The lab suspected to have been the epicenter of the global pandemic, which received money from the NIH to make viruses similar to those of COVID-19.
The committee just uncovered a doozy. The man appointed by Donald Trump to help lead the response to the pandemic was told in January that he may have played a major role in the creation of the virus and went about doing everything he could to make it appear not to be linked to the lab he helped support.
The Washington Examiner writes that information previously obtained by the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic showed that National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, headed by Fauci at the time, had funded the organization EcoHealth Alliance, which supported coronavirus research projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. According to an email between Fauci and one of his top aides, Greg Folkers, EcoHealth “has for years been among the biggest players in coronavirus work.”
Newly revealed communication between Folkers and Fauci obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by U.S. Right to Know showed that the NIAID funded a variety of EcoHealth Alliance projects conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology since 2015.
Folkers informed Fauci on Jan. 27, 2020, that NIAID indirectly funded the discovery of 52 novel SARS coronaviruses, the species of which the SARS-CoV-2 virus is a part.
Other research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology included the sampling of over 10,000 bats and 2,000 unspecified mammalian species, the discovery of Swine Acute Diarrheal Syndrome Virus, and the discovery of the closest relative to the novel coronavirus.
The email also highlights research conducted by coronavirologist Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina that found some of these novel viruses could bind to human lung, heart, and blood vessel cells.
The group that found the emails through FOIA wrote that the new emails confirm that “privately Fauci knew the magnitude of the coronavirus research going on at the coronavirus pandemic’s epicenter, even while publicly shrugging off suggestions the pandemic began with a research accident as conspiratorial.
This apparent deception has held back the public’s understanding of the matter and hindered independent investigations into the source of the worst pandemic in a century.
In an email dated January 27, 2020, Fauci received talking points for a press availability that evening. An aide laid out in detail the research at the Wuhan lab funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — the institute Fauci steered for decades.
Through the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, its president Peter Daszak and its contracted lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, NIAID had funded the discovery of 52 novel sarbecoviruses, or coronaviruses related to SARS — the species that SARS-CoV-2 belongs to.
These included the closest known relative of the ‘nCoV,’ or novel coronavirus, quickly spreading around the globe.”
It also appears to validate Senator Rand Paul’s contention that Anthony Fauci lied under oath to Congress. In August, the Kentucky senator asked “the top federal prosecutor for Washington, DC, to investigate Dr. Anthony Fauci for allegedly lying to Congress about his knowledge of US-funded coronavirus research in Wuhan, China, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Paul requested US Attorney Matthew Graves on Monday to consider charging Fauci for making false statements in May 2021 Senate testimony about government grants for gain-of-function research in Wuhan labs,” according to The New York Post.
A more pressing question may not be whether or not Fauci was hiding this information from the public. It seems rather clear that he did. What Americans deserve to know is whether Fauci hid the information from President Trump. If he didn’t, why did the president not fire him?
As more has come out about Fauci’s time in the Trump administration and Republican rivals have criticized him for his role in supporting mask mandates and lockdowns, the former president has worked to downplay the doctor’s role in the pandemic response. In a recent interview, Trump claimed that “Dr. Anthony Fauci was not a ‘big player’ in his administration and reiterated his position that he wasn’t ‘allowed’ to fire the medical adviser.
‘First of all, you’re not allowed,’ Trump told Hugh Hewitt’s radio show when asked by the conservative host why he didn’t fire Fauci, the controversial head of Trump’s COVID-19 response team, which Hewitt called the ‘biggest knock’ on Trump’s presidency.
‘No, no, no, Dr. Fauci was there. First of all, he’s civil service, and you’re not allowed to fire him. But forget that because I don’t necessarily go by everything … but Dr. Fauci would tell me things, and I wouldn’t do them in many cases. But also, he wasn’t a big player in my administration. Dr. Fauci became a big player in the administration of Biden. He’s a very big player in Biden’s administration,'” noted Fox News.
On his second-to-last day of office, President Trump gave Anthony Fauci an award for participating on his pandemic response team.
On January 19, 2021, President Trump gave Fauci an award. pic.twitter.com/lEjyjjbnnU
— Max-a-Lago X (@MaxNordau) September 7, 2023
Fauci has been living the life ever since leaving his office in the government. He has the highest pension in the history of the United States government and recently landed a cushy job at Georgetown University.
He most recently joined the rising chorus that has begun pushing for masking again amidst a recent uptick in COVID-19 cases.
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