Fauci denies funding gain-of-function analysis and deleting information

The pandemic patriarch Dr. Anthony Fauci got emotional when detailing death threats against him and his children, while also insisting taxpayer dollars were not used for risky gain-of-function research in China and he never used personal email for ‘official business.’

His bombshell admission came before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic that has been seeking for over a year now to determine the origins of the pandemic that killed over a million Americans and millions more globally. 

The fast-paced hearing slowed down briefly when Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., asked Fauci about the personal toll his role on the White House Coronavirus Taskforce cost him. 

‘Myself, my three daughters, they have had credible death threats, leading to the arrests of different individuals,’ he said. ‘Credible death threats meaning someone who clearly was on their way to killing.’

‘It’s very troublesome to me,’ he continued. ‘It is even more troublesome because they involve my wife.’

Fauci said such threats have require his family to have ‘Protective Services essentially all the time.’ 

Later, the hearing roared back to life as firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., told Fauci to his face that she believes he ‘belongs in prison.’

‘We should be recommending you to be prosecuted … for crimes against humanity,’ the Georgia Republican said.  

She also claimed that his ‘repulsive, evil science,’ led to school children having to endure class with masks, causing detrimental impacts on the kids.

Greene’s outburst earned her the scorn of Democrats and briefly the committee chair Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, who raised his voice to demand she quiet down. 

Shortly after the chairman wrangled the lawmakers back to speaking in level tones, a woman in the audience wearing a white dress began yelling at Dr. Fauci. 

She was told by Capitol Police that if she did not leave she would be arrested. 

The woman gathered her bag, a coffee and made for the door. 

As she was leaving Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., ripped the woman, telling her to get her Starbucks and go.   

Fauci’s prepared remarks, delivered to the committee, also show he denies funding gan-of-function research.

‘The viruses studied under the NIAID-funded EHA sub-award to [Wuhan Institute of Virology] had never been shown to infect humans, much less to cause high transmissibility or significant morbidity and mortality in humans,’ his prepared testimony stated. 

It appeared he did not deliver them as they were submitted to the committee. 

‘Their study, therefore, could not and did not constitute GoF research,’ it continued. 

Fauci also sought to distance himself from his now-disgraced former top aide, Dr. David Morens, who conspired to cover-up emails from federal transparency laws. 

Morens testified before the body previously that he helped coronavirus researcher Dr. Peter Daszak, who had a direct financial interest in coronavirus research in Wuhan, edit press releases for the researcher’s organization EcoHealth.

‘I knew nothing of Dr. Morens’s actions regarding EcoHealth,’ Fauci said. 

The former NIAID Director Fauci also denied using personal his personal email for ‘official business,’ before adding the caveat, ‘to the best of my knowledge.’

Chairman Wenstrup opened the hearing with a salvo calling into question Fauci’s conduct during COVID.

‘Americans were aggressively bullied, shamed, and silenced for merely questioning or debating issues such as social distancing, masks, vaccines, or the origins of COVID,’ he said. 

‘You took the position that you presented ‘the science’ and your words came across as final and as infallible in matters pertaining to the pandemic.’

‘You were the highest paid person in the government. This makes you more accountable to the people, not less.’ 

‘To be successful, our federal public health institutions must be accountable to the people again.’  

Previously, DailyMail.com revealed that Fauci previously testified before the body that he was not sure where the six-foot social distancing rules came from, telling committee lawyers that rule ‘sort of just appeared.’ 

During Monday’s hearing Fauci confirmed that the six-foot guidance came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – and that despite their guidance not being based on established science, it was implemented.  

He also previously told the counsel that he did not remember reading any studies that supported the notion that masks were effective for children.  

Speaking to counsel on behalf of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic earlier this year, Fauci told Republicans that the six foot social distancing rule ‘sort of just appeared’ and that he did not recall how it came about. 

‘You know, I don’t recall. It sort of just appeared,’ he said according to committee transcripts when pressed on how the rule came about. 

He added he ‘was not aware of studies’ that supported the social distancing, conceding that such studies ‘would be very difficult’ to do. 

In addition to not recalling any evidence supporting social distancing, Fauci also told the committee’s counsel that he didn’t remember reading anything to support that masking kids would prevent COVID.

‘Do you recall reviewing any studies or data supporting masking for children?’ he was asked. 

‘I might have,’ he responded before adding ‘but I don’t recall specifically that I did.’ 

The pandemic patriarch also testified that he had not followed any studies after the fact regarding the impacts that forced mask wearing had on children, of which there have been many.  

And his answer was an ironic COVID-esque pun, ‘I still think that’s up in the air,’ Fauci said about whether masking kids was a solid way to prevent transmission.

Further, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) told the counsel that he believes the lab leak theory – the idea that COVID began at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) – is a real ‘possibility.’ 

‘I think people have made conspiracy aspects from it,’ he said, adding ‘it could be a lab leak.’ 

‘So I think that in and of itself isn’t inherently a conspiracy theory, but some people spin off things from that that are kind of crazy.’

His admission that COVID may have began at the WIV comes four years after he backed the publication of a paper which threw cold water on the lab leak theory called the ‘Proximal Origin’ paper. 

The coronavirus committee has dedicated months to discovering the origins of the virus that upended so many lives and resulted in the deaths of 6 million people globally. 

Recently they have discovered that Fauci’s former top aide, Dr. David Morens, routinely conducted work on his personal email account and deleted files to avoid government transparency laws under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). 

His disregard for FOIA requests was so blatant that be bragged in emails to colleagues that he learned how to make official correspondence ‘disappear’ and that he would delete things he didn’t ‘want to see in the New York Times.’

Emails from Morens uncovered by the committee further revealed that he boasted about having a ‘secret back channel’ to Fauci where he could clandestinely communicate with the former NIAID director. 

That revelation shocked the committee’s chairman Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, so thoroughly that he demanded Fauci turnover his personal email and phone records to the investigative body.

Also shocking, is Fauci’s admission to the committee in January that he ‘never’ looks at the grants that he signed off on, some of which total to millions of taxpayer dollars. 

‘You know, technically, I sign off on each council, but I don’t see the grants and what they are. I never look at what grants are there,’ he told the committee’s counsel. 

Further, he said he was ‘not certain’ that foreign labs that receive U.S. grant money, such as the WIV – which was studying coronaviruses using U.S. taxpayer dollars at the time the pandemic began – operate at the same standards of American labs. 

Fauci also said that the money he gave out as a part of the NIAID grant process did not go through any national security reviews.  

Additionally, the former director said he was unaware of any conflicts of interest among his staff, which included his senior advisor Dr. Morens. 

However, Morens testified before the committee on May 22 that he helped his ‘best friend’ EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter Daszak with his nonprofit’s work.

Morens said he helped edit press releases for EcoHealth and worked to restore grant funding for the nonprofit after it’s funding was terminated in the wake of the COVID outbreak in 2020. 

NIH, which employs Morens, funded Daszak’s EcoHealth to the tune of millions of dollars. 

Still, Fauci said he was unaware that Morens had any conflicts of interests. 

The committee will surely seek to clarify Fauci and Moren’s ‘secret back channel’ of communication during the June 3 hearing.