Fauci Appearing Before Congress to Answer Questions on Mask Mandates, COVID-19 Origins

This article originally appeared on The Epoch Times and was republished with permission.

Guest post by Zachary Stieber

Dr. Anthony Fauci is appearing before Congress on Jan. 8 and Jan. 9 to answer questions for some 14 hours on how he flipped his position on public policy for masks, how the agency he headed funded risky research in China, and how post-infection immunity was downplayed.

Dr. Fauci, 83, a chief architect of the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic, is sitting down behind closed doors to face questioning from the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. It’s the first time he’ll answer questions under oath since November 2022.

Dr. Fauci agreed to appear to answer questions for about seven hours each day but only if he could bring two personal lawyers and two government lawyers, the panel announced in late 2023.

Members of the panel plan to ask Dr. Fauci about how he flipped positions on mask policy, a committee aide said. Dr. Fauci started from the position that masks wouldn’t work to curb transmission of COVID-19, according to emails he sent in early 2020, to being an ardent supporter of not only wearing masks but mandating masks.

Dr. Fauci, who was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for more than 30 years, will also face questions about an email that described him as prompting the drafting of a publication that downplayed the theory that COVID-19 leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China; on his agency sending money to that same lab through a nonprofit; and on his communications with other top government officials on the origins of COVID-19.

Dr. Fauci spoke with scientists who drafted a publication called “Proximal Origins” that claimed to disprove the theory that COVID-19 came from the Wuhan lab. The theory has not been disproven, many experts say.

Dr. Fauci promoted the paper from the White House podium without disclosing his involvement in it, even though one of the scientists said in an email obtained by the House subcommittee that Dr. Fauci “prompted” the paper.

Dr. Fauci has previously said the idea that the paper was drafted to disprove the lab leak theory was “conspiracy at its height,” though he did not directly address whether he prompted the paper.

Robert Kadlec, a top U.S. official during the early part of the pandemic, recently said that he thought Dr. Fauci’s goal in promoting the idea that COVID-19 had a natural origin was to divert attention away from the Wuhan lab.

Dr. Fauci also testified to Congress that his agency did not fund a type of work called gain-of-function, or testing that enhances a virus, in China. But documents released by the NIAID’s parent agency showed experiments conducted in Wuhan on a bat coronavirus resulted in mice becoming sicker when compared to the original virus.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a doctor, and others have said Dr. Fauci lied. Dr. Paul asked U.S. prosecutors to prosecute Dr. Fauci but there has been no indication they have pursued the referrals.

Vaccines, Lockdowns, and Natural Immunity

The subcommittee also plans to ask Dr. Fauci about so-called breakthrough infections, or COVID-19 cases among the vaccinated.

Breakthrough cases began appearing shortly after the vaccines were rolled out in December 2020, including cases that resulted in severe illness and/or death. Meanwhile, top U.S. officials were claiming well into 2021 that vaccinated people could not get sick.

An email from Jan. 30, 2021, obtained by The Epoch Times, showed that Dr. Fauci was discussing breakthroughs with his boss at the time, Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health.

Read the full story at The Epoch Times.