The pandemic patriarch Dr. Anthony Fauci got emotional when detailing death threats against him and his children, while also insisting taxpayer dollars were not used for risky gain-of-function research in China and he never used personal email for ‘official business.’
His bombshell admission came before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic that has been seeking for over a year now to determine the origins of the pandemic that killed over a million Americans and millions more globally.
The fast-paced hearing slowed down briefly when Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., asked Fauci about the personal toll his role on the White House Coronavirus Taskforce cost him.
‘Myself, my three daughters, they have had credible death threats, leading to the arrests of different individuals,’ he said. ‘Credible death threats meaning someone who clearly was on their way to killing.’
‘It’s very troublesome to me,’ he continued. ‘It is even more troublesome because they involve my wife.’
Fauci said such threats have require his family to have ‘Protective Services essentially all the time.’
Later, the hearing roared back to life as firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene , R-Ga., told Fauci to his face that she believes he is lying and ‘belongs in prison.’
‘We should be recommending you to be prosecuted … for crimes against humanity,’ the Georgia Republican said.
She also claimed that his ‘repulsive, evil science,’ led to school children having to endure class with masks, causing detrimental impacts on the kids.
Freshman Democrat Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., slammed Greene for her ‘ridiculous’ attacks on Fauci.
He said this has been the most unruly conference in his 1.5 years in Congress.
Greene’s outburst earned her the scorn of Democrats and briefly the committee chair Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, who raised his voice to demand she quiet down.
Shortly after the chairman wrangled the lawmakers back to speaking in level tones, a woman in the audience wearing a white dress began yelling at Dr. Fauci.
She was told by Capitol Police that if she did not leave she would be arrested.
The woman gathered her bag, a coffee and made for the door.
As she was leaving, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., ripped the woman, telling her to get her Starbucks and go.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, holds up an image of Dr. Anthony Fauci featured in a DailyMail.com article during her spat with the doctor
Former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Fauci’s prepared remarks, delivered to the committee, also show he denies funding gan-of-function research.
‘The viruses studied under the NIAID-funded EHA sub-award to [Wuhan Institute of Virology] had never been shown to infect humans, much less to cause high transmissibility or significant morbidity and mortality in humans,’ his prepared testimony stated.
It appeared he did not deliver them as they were submitted to the committee.
‘Their study, therefore, could not and did not constitute GoF research,’ it continued.
During verbal testimony, he again denied that NIAID funded the gain-of-function research in Wuhan, saying the definition of the term has caused much confusion.
Additionally, Fauci sought to distance himself from his now-disgraced former top aide, Dr. David Morens, who conspired to cover-up emails from federal transparency laws.
Morens testified before the body previously that he helped coronavirus researcher Dr. Peter Daszak, who had a direct financial interest in coronavirus research in Wuhan, edit press releases for the researcher’s organization EcoHealth.
‘I knew nothing of Dr. Morens’s actions regarding EcoHealth,’ Fauci said.
He also said that Morens ‘definitely’ had a conflict of interest with his work with Daszak. Fauci added Morens’s actions were ‘inappropriate’ and violated federal law.
The former NIAID director also denied using personal his personal email for ‘official business,’ before adding the caveat, ‘to the best of my knowledge.’
Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is sworn-in before testifying
Fauci’s former top aide, Dr. David Morens, speaks during a House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing on Capitol Hill on May 22
Chairman Wenstrup opened the hearing with a salvo calling into question Fauci’s conduct during COVID.
‘Americans were aggressively bullied, shamed, and silenced for merely questioning or debating issues such as social distancing, masks, vaccines, or the origins of COVID,’ he said.
‘You took the position that you presented ‘the science’ and your words came across as final and as infallible in matters pertaining to the pandemic.’
‘You were the highest paid person in the government. This makes you more accountable to the people, not less.’
‘To be successful, our federal public health institutions must be accountable to the people again.’
Previously, DailyMail.com revealed that Fauci testified before the body that he was not sure where the six-foot social distancing rules came from, telling committee lawyers that rule ‘sort of just appeared.’
‘You know, I don’t recall. It sort of just appeared,’ he said according to committee transcripts when pressed on how the rule came about.
He added he ‘was not aware of studies’ that supported the social distancing, conceding that such studies ‘would be very difficult’ to do.
During Monday’s hearing Fauci confirmed that the six-foot guidance came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – and that despite their guidance not being based on established science, it was implemented.
‘My saying there was no science behind it, means there was no clinical trial that proved that,’ he clarified at the hearing.
Fauci also told the committee’s counsel in January that he didn’t remember reading anything to support that masking kids would prevent COVID.
‘Do you recall reviewing any studies or data supporting masking for children?’ he was asked at the time.
‘I don’t recall,’ Dr. Anthony Fauci told the committee when pressed on where the six foot social distancing rule came from ‘It sort of just appeared,’ according to his January testimony
When pressed on the forced masking of kids in private testimony in January, Fauci could not recall if he read anything to support the fact it would prevent illness
Dr. Anthony Fauci testifies before Congress on the COVID pandemic on June 3
‘I might have,’ he responded before adding ‘but I don’t recall specifically that I did.’
On Monday, however, Fauci did admit that there have been studies documented the ‘negative’ impacts that mask wearing in schools had on kids.
‘There was no study that did masks on kids before,’ he also testified.
‘You couldn’t do the study,’ Fauci said. ‘You had to respond to an epidemic that was killing 4,000 – 5,000 Americans per day.’
Further, Fauci confirmed during Monday’s hearing that the lab leak theory – the idea that COVID began at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) – is a real ‘possibility.’
‘I keep an open mind as to what the origin is,’ he said.
His admission that COVID may have began at the WIV comes four years after he backed the publication of a paper which threw cold water on the lab leak theory called the ‘Proximal Origin’ paper.
Though he confirmed during his testimony that he did not edit or contribute to the paper, though he did review it around the time of its publication.
Fauci said he did not remember what the exact discussion was regarding the six-foot social distancing rule while testifying Monday
The former NIAID director said the lab leak theory could be true
Recently the committee has discovered that Fauci’s former top aide, Dr. David Morens, routinely conducted work on his personal email account and deleted files to avoid government transparency laws under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
His disregard for FOIA requests was so blatant that be bragged in emails to colleagues that he learned how to make official correspondence ‘disappear’ and that he would delete things he didn’t ‘want to see in the New York Times.
Emails from Morens uncovered by the committee further revealed that he boasted about having a ‘secret back channel’ to Fauci where he could clandestinely communicate with the former NIAID director.
That revelation shocked the committee’s chairman Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, so thoroughly that he demanded Fauci turnover his personal email and phone records to the investigative body.
Fauci said on Monday that no such back channel existed.
Also shocking, is Fauci’s admission to the committee in January that he ‘never’ looks at the grants that he signed off on, some of which total to millions of taxpayer dollars.
‘You know, technically, I sign off on each council, but I don’t see the grants and what they are. I never look at what grants are there,’ he told the committee’s counsel.
Further, he said he was ‘not certain’ that foreign labs that receive U.S. grant money, such as the WIV – which was studying coronaviruses using U.S. taxpayer dollars at the time the pandemic began – operate at the same standards of American labs.
The former NIAID director said it would be ‘impossible’ for him to review every grant before signing it as there are thousands that need attention.
Instead, he testified Monday, that he had senior NIAID officials do the lion’s share of review before those requests for money hit his desk.