“We spend our whole lives trying to find the source of this epidemic and try to stop it to protect the American people,” Fauci said, adding that he never pressured his colleagues to reach conclusions about the virus’ origins and refuting other Republican accusations.
Former health adviser to the Trump and Biden administrations He will testify Monday before a House committee investigating the nation’s coronavirus response. The hearing comes amid a fight between the committee’s Republican and Democratic leaders over whether the focus on Fauci is necessary to understand the origins of the virus or a waste of time spreading unproven theories about the pandemic and undermining confidence in public health.
It was Fauci’s first time appearing before a Republican-led committee to publicly answer questions about the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed more than 1 million Americans. Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees U.S. health agencies, also participated in the hearing. Fauci testified behind closed doors for 14 hours before lawmakers in January.
The committee found no evidence that Fauci led a cover-up or that the virus leaked from a lab. Most U.S. intelligence agencies investigating the pandemic support the theory that the virus emerged naturally through animal-to-human jump.
Republicans on Monday went after Fauci’s ties to the EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that received funding from Fauci’s institution and conducted dangerous virus research in Wuhan, China. Federal regulators suspended funding to the group last month after alleging that EcoHealth failed to monitor and report on the research. Republicans also took aim at David Morens, a former aide to Fauci who deleted emails and took other steps to evade federal records laws during his email exchanges with EcoHealth officials and other colleagues.
“Senior officials in your office have discussed in writing violating federal law, deleting public records and sharing personal government information with grant recipients,” Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), the committee’s chairman, said in prepared remarks. Fauci said he had “no knowledge” of his former colleague’s actions regarding EcoHealth or the emails, and distanced himself from Mullens and reprimanded him for violating NIH policy.
Democrats have rallied around Fauci, with the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Raul Ruiz of California, and others defending the 83-year-old scientist’s public service, saying his work fighting HIV and other viruses has saved countless lives in the U.S. and around the world. Fauci testified that he and his family have received relentless death threats over his alleged role in sparking the COVID-19 pandemic.
Republicans have “wasted a lot of time and taxpayer money” pursuing conspiracies about the pandemic, said Rep. Kathy Castor of Florida, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee’s oversight committee. She urged lawmakers to redirect their efforts to other efforts, such as a stalled bill that would reauthorize funding for public health response programs. “It’s not too late for Republicans to join us,” Castor said.
The hearing for Fauci, widely seen as the face of America’s coronavirus response, brought a circus-like atmosphere to a coronavirus committee that has often struggled to gain attention as the nation recovers from the pandemic. A line of would-be observers snaked around the Rayburn Office Building, hoping to find a seat at the standing-room-only hearing. One person sitting in the front row wore a T-shirt that read “Lock Up Fauci” in bold.
Members of Congress are also on the list, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a member of the COVID-19 Committee who has missed seven of the past 10 hearings. Greene also accused Dr. Fauci of misconduct, including with the beagle experiment, and briefly stalled the hearing by saying he should go to jail. Democrats protested Greene’s accusations, and Rep. Wenstrup scolded her for breaching decorum.
Republicans also pressed Fauci on broader issues of the pandemic, including when he privately told the committee in January that the federal government’s 6-foot social distancing recommendation “kind of came out of nowhere in early 2020” and that the choice of that distance “was not based on data.”
Fauci said Monday that there were no clinical trials to determine six feet of distance, meaning Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials who made the recommendation based it on early expectations about how the virus spreads. Republicans were not convinced by that answer, and questioned why Fauci had not pushed CDC officials to change the recommendation when it became clear that six feet of social distancing alone was not enough to prevent infection, especially because viral particles can remain airborne for hours in enclosed environments.
“The six-foot rule has hurt businesses and kept students from staying home and learning,” said Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.).
Some prominent scientists have accused the congressional coronavirus committees of promoting conspiracy theories and intimidating virologists, arguing that Republicans are damaging a workforce that will be needed when the next pandemic inevitably hits.
It is anti-science that the 6/n Committee is creating an atmosphere of intimidation for American virologists and infectious disease experts that will result in a shortage of resources when the next pandemic comes to America.
— Professor Peter Hotez, MD, PhD (@PeterHotez) May 25, 2024
But other outside experts said they did not believe there was a coronavirus cover-up at the highest levels of government, but understood the committee’s questions.
“I don’t agree with the tone and breathlessness behind the questions from Wenstrup and other Republicans,” said Holden Thorpe, editor of Science magazine. “At the same time, I think the scientific community has made a lot of mistakes that haven’t been very good for all of us… [and] That made it easier for them to bring this lawsuit.”
Thorpe testified before the committee in April about how academic journals have approached coverage of the coronavirus and whether Fauci and other officials pressured him to downplay claims of the virus leaking from a lab — a charge he denied. Like many of the coronavirus committee’s recent hearings before Monday, the hearing drew little attention, including from the Republicans who called for it, and only three of the committee’s nine Republicans attended.
