Lawmakers are reacting to news that Dr. Anthony Fauci initially fought a Trump-era order to revoke a contentious NIH research grant tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in April 2020, with some accusing him of lying in Congressional testimony.
Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, initially resisted a White House directive to cancel the NIH grant to EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit conducting coronavirus research that had previously collaborated with the Wuhan lab some experts suspected of being the source of COVID-19.
According to an upcoming book by Washington Post reporters Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta, he eventually “reluctantly consented” after learning then-President Trump was directly behind the order.
Abutaleb and Paletta’s book, “Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History,” provides a behind-the-scenes account of how Fauci and his colleagues at the National Institutes of Health responded to the White House instruction.
However, in June 2020, Fauci stated that the grant, worth $370,000, was “canceled because the NIH was told to cancel it,” and that he didn’t “know the reason” behind the White House’s order during a House Energy and Commerce hearing after Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Texas, questioned why the Trump administration cut off NIH funding for EcoHealth.
Lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are now reacting to the book excerpt in comparison to Fauci’s June 2020 congressional testimony, and they are calling for a probe into the virus’s origins and Fauci’s dismissal.
“Dr. Fauci is so consumed with maintaining his own relevance and downplaying President Trump’s role in combating this catastrophe that he’s been caught lying yet again,” said Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga.
“We need someone who is more concerned with the facts than their own public relations campaign to head the pandemic response and inquiry into its origins.It is time for Dr. Fauci to leave.”
Rep. Markwayne Mullin, R-Oklahoma, termed the disparities between Fauci’s hearing testimony and the book excerpt “extremely troubling,” adding that it “shows just how crucial it is to have a comprehensive examination into the origins of COVID-19.”
“We owe it to the American people to find out how the epidemic occurred, what Dr. Fauci knew, and when he knew it,” he stated.
The NIH’s choice to support research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology has been a source of controversy between Fauci and a number of Republican congressmen.
Senator Rand Paul and others have claimed that Fauci was aware that scientists at the Wuhan facility were performing “gain of function” studies on the virus, which Fauci has categorically rejected.
