UNITED STATES NEWS

Fauci pushes back partisan attacks in fiery House hearing over COVID origins and controversies

Jun 3, 2024, 6:00 PM

Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, te...

Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testifies during a House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus pandemic at Capitol Hill, Monday, June 3, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

(AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert until leaving the government in 2022, was back before Congress on Monday, calling “simply preposterous” Republican allegations that he’d tried to cover up origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A GOP-led subcommittee has spent over a year probing the nation’s response to the pandemic and whether U.S.-funded research in China may have played any role in how it started — yet found no evidence linking Fauci to wrongdoing.

He’d already been grilled behind closed doors, for 14 hours over two days in January. But Monday, Fauci testified voluntarily in public and on camera at a hearing that quickly deteriorated into partisan attacks.

Republicans repeated unproven accusations against the longtime National Institutes of Health scientist while Democrats apologized for Congress besmirching his name and bemoaned a missed opportunity to prepare for the next scary outbreak.

“He is not a comic book super villain,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., saying the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic had failed to prove a list of damaging allegations.

Fauci was the public face of the government’s early COVID-19 response under then-President Donald Trump and later as an adviser to President Joe Biden. A trusted voice to millions, he also was the target of partisan anger and choked up Monday as he recalled death threats and other harassment of himself and his family, threats he said still continue. Police later escorted hecklers out of the hearing room.

The main issue: Many scientists believe the virus most likely emerged in nature and jumped from animals to people, probably at a wildlife market in Wuhan, the city in China where the outbreak began. There’s no new scientific information supporting that the virus might instead have leaked from a laboratory. A U.S. intelligence analysis says there’s insufficient evidence to prove either way — and a recent Associated Press investigation found the Chinese government froze critical efforts to trace the source of the virus in the first weeks of the outbreak.

Fauci has long said publicly that he was open to both theories but that there’s more evidence supporting COVID-19’s natural origins, the way other deadly viruses including coronavirus cousins SARS and MERS jumped into people. It was a position he repeated Monday as Republican lawmakers questioned if he worked behind-the-scenes to squelch the lab-leak theory or even tried to influence intelligence agencies.

“I have repeatedly stated that I have a completely open mind to either possibility and that if definitive evidence becomes available to validate or refute either theory, I will ready accept it,” Fauci said. He later invoked a fictional secret agent, decrying a conspiracy theory that “I was parachuting into the CIA like Jason Bourne and told the CIA that they should really not be talking about a lab leak.”

Republicans also have accused Fauci of lying to Congress in denying that his agency funded “gain of function” research – the practicing of enhancing a virus in a lab to study its potential real-world impact – at a lab in Wuhan.

NIH for years gave grants to a New York nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance that used some of the funds to work with a Chinese lab studying coronaviruses commonly carried by bats. Last month, the government suspended EcoHealth’s federal funding, citing its failure to properly monitor some of those experiments.

The definition of “gain of function” covers both general research and especially risky experiments to “enhance” the ability of potentially pandemic pathogens to spread or cause severe disease in humans. Fauci stressed he was using the risky experiment definition, saying “it would be molecularly impossible” for the bat viruses studied with EcoHealth’s funds to be turned into the virus that caused the pandemic.

In an exchange with Rep. H. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., Fauci acknowledged that the lab leak is still an open question since it’s impossible to know if some other lab, not funded by NIH money, was doing risky research with coronaviruses.

Fauci did face a new set of questions about the credibility of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which he led for 38 years. Last month, the House panel revealed emails from an NIAID colleague about ways to evade public records laws, including by not discussing controversial pandemic issues in government email.

Fauci denounced the actions of that colleague and insisted that “to the best of my knowledge I have never conducted official business via my personal email.”

The pandemic’s origins weren’t the only hot topic. The House panel also blasted some public health measures taken to slow spread of the virus before COVID-19 vaccines, spurred by NIAID research, helped allow a return to normalcy. Ordering people to stay 6 feet apart meant many businesses, schools and churches couldn’t stay open, and subcommittee chairman Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, called it a “burdensome” and arbitrary rule, noting that in his prior closed-door testimony Fauci had acknowledged it wasn’t scientifically backed.

Fauci responded Monday that the 6-feet distancing wasn’t his guideline but one created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before scientists had learned that the new virus was airborne, not spread simply by droplets emitted a certain distance.

United States News

Associated Press

Guest lineups for the Sunday news shows

WASHINGTON (AP) — ABC’s “This Week” — House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.; Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell. ___ NBC’s “Meet the Press” — Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. ___ CBS’ “Face the Nation” — Sens. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C.; Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio; Catherine Russell, UNICEF’s executive […]

3 minutes ago

Associated Press

Judge maintains injunction against key part of Alabama absentee ballot law

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A federal judge on Friday refused to stay an injunction against a portion of a new Alabama law that limits who can help voters with absentee ballot applications. Chief U.S. District Judge David Proctor last week issued a preliminary injunction stating that the law’s ban on gifts and payments for help […]

12 minutes ago

Associated Press

A coal miner killed on the job in West Virginia is the 10th in US this year, surpassing 2023 total

GRAFTON, W.Va. (AP) — A coal miner died Friday, nearly a week after being injured on the job in northern West Virginia, officials said. Colton Walls, 34, of Bruceton Mills, was injured while working as a longwall electrician at the underground Leer Mining Complex operated by Arch Resources in Grafton, Gov. Jim Justice said in […]

16 minutes ago

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers his speech at a dinner marking the 75th anniversary of the fo...

Associated Press

China could wage economic war on Taiwan to force surrender, report says

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. military officials and analysts have for years warned of possible armed attacks or blockades by China on Taiwan, but a report released Friday has raised a red flag about possible non-military tactics that could be used effectively against the self-governed island. Beijing could wage an economic and cyber war to force […]

34 minutes ago

Associated Press

Georgia businessman convicted of cheating two ex-NBA players of $8M

NEW YORK (AP) — A Georgia businessman was convicted Friday of cheating former NBA stars Dwight Howard and Chandler Parsons of $8 million after a trial in Manhattan federal court. The jury returned its verdict against Calvin Darden Jr. eight years after Darden was sentenced to a year in prison for impersonating his successful father […]

41 minutes ago

Associated Press

Biden talks election, economy and Middle East in surprise news briefing

WASHINGTON (AP) — After 1,080 days as president, Joe Biden on Friday decided to pop in and take questions in the White House briefing room for the first time, striding in with a grin after a strong monthly jobs report and the temporary settlement of a strike by ports workers. The president has been less […]

1 hour ago

Sponsored Articles

...

Bright Wealth Management

Here’s how to save money on retirement planning

PHOENIX -- With inflation still going on, people planning on retiring still face many issues on when they can retire and how much money they need to achieve it.

...

Day & Night Air Conditioning, Heating and Plumbing

It wouldn’t hurt to get your AC checked after Arizona’s excruciating heat wave

A well-maintained air conditioning unit is vital to living a comfortable life inside, away from triple-digit heat in Arizona.

...

Sanderson Ford

3 storylines to get you revved up for the 2024 Arizona Cardinals

Arizona Cardinals training camp is just a couple weeks away starting on July 25, and Sanderson Ford is revved up and ready to go.

Fauci pushes back partisan attacks in fiery House hearing over COVID origins and controversies