Anthony Fauci on Monday denied that he ever tried to hide public records and sought to distance himself from a records-keeping scandal involving top officials at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
In a fiery and occasionally emotional day of testimony, Fauci clashed with Republicans on the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus over emails from senior NIH officials who apparently sought to work around Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requirements.
The select committee is ostensibly tasked with investigating the origins of COVID-19, although lawmakers have made little progress on that front.
However, House Republicans discovered potentially damaging revelations about actions taken during the pandemic involving Fauci’s former colleagues at NIH.
At the center of the controversy are emails from NIH scientist David Morens, who discussed deleting emails to avoid FOIA requests and recommended colleagues email Fauci about sensitive matters on his private account to avoid scrutiny.
From Fauci’s testimony:
- Fauci denied ever avoiding a FOIA request and said he never conducted official government business on his private account, although he acknowledged he may have corresponded with Morens about “medical scientific chapters” on his private email.
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Fauci said he “knew nothing” about the effort to conceal public records, and claimed Morens “was not an adviser to me on the institute policy or other substantive issues.”
- Fauci gave a murky response when asked if Morens reported directly to him, but he said Morens was “wrong” to conduct business on private email and that his conduct was “unbecoming of a government official.”
Democrats rallied to defend Fauci, viewing the hearing as the latest in the GOP’s long-running effort to cast him as the central villain in the pandemic.
“He’s not a comic book supervillain. He did not fund research to create the COVID 19 pandemic. He did not lie to Congress about gain of function research in Wuhan. And he did not organize a lab leak suppression campaign.” – Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.)
Republicans expressed disbelief that Fauci could not have known about an effort by his longtime aide to conceal records.
They lined up to take their shots on everything from pandemic restrictions, to U.S. funding of research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), to allegations Fauci pushed a natural origins theory of the pandemic over the lab leak theory for political reasons.
Fauci denied trying to suppress the lab leak theory.
“I have always kept an open mind to the different possibilities….I don’t think the concept of there being a lab leak is inherently a conspiracy theory.”
And he again denied that the NIH funded gain-of-function research at WIV, although Republicans and Democrats disagree over the definition.
Rep. Debra Lesko (R-Ariz.) asked Fauci directly if the NIH funded the “potentially dangerous enhanced potential pandemic pathogens gain of function research” in Wuhan.
“I would not characterize it the way you did. The NIH, through a sub-award to the Wuhan Institute, funded research on the surveillance of and possibility of emerging infections. I would not characterize it as dangerous gain of function research.”
Last month, the Biden administration suspended federal funding to a group that received NIH funds to conduct research with the WIV, saying they failed to sufficiently monitor and report on high-risk activities.
More from the hearing:
- Fauci choked up when talking about the harassment he and his family have endured since he became the face of the government’s response to COVID-19.
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Fauci said he supported travel restrictions enacted by former President Trump. He said he didn’t believe efforts to ban foreign nationals from China were racist or xenophobic.
- Fauci said he didn’t come up with the 6 feet of social distancing guidance, but rather that it came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Fauci said there were discussions at the White House about changing the guidance.
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Fauci defended school closures, church closures, mask mandates and stay-at home guidance, saying they were important to “stop the tsunami of deaths that were occurring early on.” But he acknowledged that “how long you kept them going is debatable.”
- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) refused to address Fauci as a “doctor” and called for a criminal referral against him for “crimes against humanity.” The GOP chairman of the committee, Rep. Brad Westrup (R-Ohio), reprimanded Greene.
