Fauci Accused of Lying to Congress About EcoHealth Funding

Original article here

Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), is being accused of committing perjury after he told Congress he never spoke with his senior advisor about funding EcoHealth Alliance.

Members of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic grilled Fauci during a contentious hearing Monday examining the government’s COVID-19 response.

Fauci threw his disgraced senior adviser, Dr. David Morens, under the bus, claiming he had no knowledge about the NIH funding EcoHealth and no knowledge about Morens deleting federal records to avoid FOIA requests.

“I knew nothing of his actions in assisting Dr. [Peter] Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance,” the former NIAID director said in his opening remarks.

Fauci also disputed Morens’ title of “senior adviser,” stating that Morens was “functionally … not an adviser to me on institute policy or other substantive issues.”

“Let me state for the record that to the best of my knowledge, I have never conducted official business via my personal email,” Fauci said.

The doctor also insisted that he “did not” engage in a “secret back channel” communications about COVID origins or the federal grant to EcoHealth.

When asked by Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) whether he deleted any federal emails or records, Fauci fired back, “No, I did not.”

“I don’t have any idea what he’s [Morens] talking about,” he added. “There’s no back channel at NIAID.”

“I do not do government business on my private email,” he insisted.

A recently uncovered email however indicates that Fauci communicated with Daszak through a “back channel” at Boston University.

Morens could face a criminal investigation for potential federal record-keeping crimes, and some believe Fauci should, as well.

Molecular biologist Richard H. Ebright described Fauci’s testimony on X as a “parade of perjury.”

“Perjury in almost every answer. Fauci needs to be referred for prosecution for perjury,”  Ebright wrote on X following the hearing. “The Subcommittee majority has the votes. And should use them,” he added.

Ebright is a Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University and Laboratory Director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology.

“Fauci perjured himself again in his transcribed interview with the U.S. House Select Subcommittee, in which he lied about the coverage of the policies, lied about his violations of the policies, and lied about his perjury before the Senate,” Ebright told the Defender.

“EcoHealth,” a “global pandemic prevention” nonprofit run by British zoologist Dr. Peter Daszak, partnered with the the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) to conduct risky gain-of-function experiments on novel bat coronaviruses from 2014 to 2021.

Earlier this month, the  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finally initiated formal debarment proceedings against Daszak to prevent him receiving any more taxpayer dollars.

Throughout the pandemic, Fauci, 83, repeatedly denied that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the agency overseeing NIAID, funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Lab and shot down speculation about the coronavirus leaking from the lab as a conspiracy theory.

However, NIH communications obtained by the Intercept in November 2021 revealed that EcoHealth received a $3.1 million NIH grant in 2014 called “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence” that included gain-of-function research with the Wuhan Lab.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) pressed Dr. Anthony Fauci about his role in suppressing the lab-leak theory during the hearing.

“Why was it so important that the virus wasn’t started in a lab?” Jordan (R-Ohio) asked, referring to evidence in emails and court filings that the Biden regime pressured social media companies to censor Americans who suggested COVID-19 escaped from a lab.

“I can’t answer that,” Fauci replied, saying he has had “an open mind throughout the entire process” about COVID origins.

Jordan pointed out that now-famous emails revealed how several scientists initially suspected a lab leak in February 2020, but within three days of a conference call with Fauci and NIH director Dr. Francis Collins, they fell in line with the natural spillover theory.

“Three days,” Jordan pointed out.

“That’s exactly right,” Fauci replied. “You can do that in three days.”

Then-Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Robert Redfield, who was not in on the conference call, previously testified to the subcommittee that he was “sidelined” because he suspected a lab leak.

“When he said that I kept him out, that is an incorrect statement,” Fauci said.

Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., professor of international law at the University of Illinois, told the Defender that Fauci’s testimony Monday was par-for-the course.

“Fauci has already lied and perjured himself before Congress. He should have been prosecuted already. You cannot believe one word he is saying,” Boyle said.

Boyle, a bioweapons expert who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, added that Fauci “knew about the Chinese lab leak all along and covered it up right from the very get-go around September of 2019.”

Fauci “has lied about it ever since then and about everything related to the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines in order to cover up his own criminality,” Boyle said.

The Subcommittee has requested access to Fauci’s personal email and cellphone records as part of their investigation. But according to former State Dept. cyber security expert Mike Benz, any effort to hold Fauci accountable is probably a fool’s errand.

“Fauci can lie to Congress with impunity because the only way to indict him for perjury is the Justice Department,” he wrote on X.  “And we know what the Justice Department is.”