On Monday, Republican members of the powerful House Oversight Committee announced their intentions to pursue investigations of Dr. Anthony Fauci when they reclaim the majority, even after Fauci announced his plans to step down in December.
As reported by The Daily Caller, Fauci will be leaving his positions at the White House, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in December, after spending 38 years in government. The 81-year-old Fauci said that he will remain active in public health to some degree, and that after leaving government he will enter the “next chapter” of his career.
Congressman James Comer (R-Ky.), the ranking Republican member of the Oversight Committee, issued a statement declaring that “retirement can’t shield Dr. Fauci from congressional oversight.”
“Emails obtained by Oversight Committee Republicans reveal what Dr. Fauci said publicly about COVID origins was very different than what was said privately,” Comer continued. “Dr. Fauci was warned by top scientists early on that the virus looked genetically manipulated and likely leaked from the Wuhan lab. Despite these facts, Dr. Fauci dismissed these ideas in public as conspiracy theories.”
Republicans in both houses of Congress have called out Fauci’s flip-flopping in sworn testimony regarding his role, his knowledge, or his claimed lack thereof, of the work that went on at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which included deliberately altering the genetic makeup of various strains of the coronavirus. Fauci also denied, under oath, allegations that the NIH had provided funding to the WIV for this gain-of-function research, despite testimony and evidence from other sources suggesting otherwise.
“We need to know if Dr. Fauci concealed anything from government officials in order to shield the NIH’s cozy relationship with EcoHealth Alliance,” Comer added, referencing the link between Fauci’s agency and a group that provided further funding and support to gain-of-function research at the WIV.