This week Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and President Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor, announced he will be retiring at the end of the year. While Fauci’s federal career is coming to an end, congressional oversight of his efforts to possibly conceal the origins of COVID-19 is just getting started.
The American people have many questions for Fauci, and we are determined to get answers. For the past two years, Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee have called for Fauci to testify before the committee and provide documents and information related to our investigation into COVID-19 origination. However, Democrats have shielded Fauci from any meaningful congressional oversight and have refused to invite him to appear before the committee.
The origin of COVID-19 — a virus with a death toll surpassing 1 million Americans and 6 million globally — is a question that must be answered. Discovering the origin is vital to providing accountability and protecting Americans in the future.
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This is why the actions of Fauci and Francis Collins, the former director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), are so concerning. These experts claim to follow "the science," but, in reality, they colluded with other scientists to diminish the mounting evidence pointing to a lab leak in Wuhan, China, preferring the natural origin narrative. To date, their motives are unknown.
"The science" may be inconvenient for Fauci, but it must be followed to unlock answers about COVID-19. If the American people grant us the majority in November, Republicans on the Oversight Committee will use the power of the gavel to pursue our investigation into the origins of this virus.
From the few unredacted emails we’ve already reviewed, we know that Fauci’s closest advisers — including some that he awards millions of dollars to per year — warned in February 2020 that the virus appeared to be genetically manipulated and pointed to a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. These warnings were never relayed to President Donald Trump, the COVID-19 task force, or any other federal agency. Why did Fauci and Collins hide this information?
We’ve also learned that these same scientists who warned of genetic manipulation and a lab leak rapidly changed their tune after a secret conference call with Fauci. In fact, within a span of three days, four of the scientists on the call authored a paper — using taxpayer dollars awarded directly by Fauci — that concluded that "[COVID-19] is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus." A conclusion supported by zero evidence then, and zero evidence now.
We also know that NIH’s Collins wished this paper would squash the lab leak theory and wondered to Fauci if there was more that could be done to diminish it. The next day, Fauci cited this paper from the White House podium as unequivocal evidence against the lab leak.
So why did these scientists do a 180-degree flip-flop in a matter of hours after speaking with Fauci? We’ve called on these scientists to provide answers to us, but they have not been cooperative with our investigation.
It appears that following the COVID-19 origination science would expose Fauci and Collins’ cozy relationship with EcoHealth Alliance, an NIH grantee that conducted gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, and "disrupt international harmony," as Collins opined in an email reviewed by Republicans.
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We know that Fauci and his associates at NIH allowed EcoHealth to violate its grant terms for years without consequence. Specifically, Fauci allowed EcoHealth to shield the Wuhan Institute of Virology from any transparency by concealing its dangerous experiments on bat coronaviruses from the U.S. government. Experiments that may have resulted in a once a century pandemic that killed millions.
The pandemic world is a very different one. Children are years behind in reading and math, violence is on the rise across our nation, mental health is more fragile than ever, substance abuse has increased, and small businesses and the associated livelihoods have collapsed. There must be accountability for the harms.
We need all of Fauci’s emails and communications surrounding the origin of COVID-19, the NIH’s documents on experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as well as EcoHealth Alliance’s involvement. These will establish what Fauci knew and when he knew it, and what, if anything, we could have done differently to guard against the harms Americans have endured. Whether American lives could have been saved. The American people deserve accountability, and Republicans are determined to provide it when we take back the House of Representatives in 2023.
