Former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci will testify twice before a House select subcommittee next year, sitting for a transcribed interview and subsequent public hearing about the federal government’s pandemic response.
“Dr. Fauci was the face of America’s public health response during the COVID-19 pandemic, and his testimony will serve as a crucial component of the Select Subcommittee’s investigations into the origin of COVID-19, coercive mandates, gain-of-function type research, scientific censorship, and more,” House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) said in a statement.
“It is time for Dr. Fauci to confront the facts and address the numerous controversies that have arisen during and after the pandemic. Americans deserve trusted public health leaders who prioritize the well-being of our people over any personal or political goals,” he added.
“Thankfully, retirement from public service does not shield one from Congressional oversight nor accountability to the American people. During Dr. Fauci’s upcoming testimonies, honesty is non-negotiable.”
The former longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) will answer questions for seven hours per day on Jan. 8 and 9, 2024, accompanied by two personal attorneys and two government counsel.
Fauci will also attend a public hearing to be announced at a later date, according to a letter sent to his attorneys.
The House COVID subcommittee released emails earlier this year showing that Fauci had “prompted,” helped to edit and gave final approval to a research paper meant to “disprove” the so-called “lab leak” theory of the origin of SARS-CoV-2.
The Feb. 17, 2020, study, published in Nature Medicine, was later used by Fauci to dismiss concerns that the COVID-19 pandemic may have originated in a Chinese research lab like the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Other records obtained by the subcommittee show an adviser to Fauci may have illegally used a private email account to dodge Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests about COVID — and also deleted some communications.
Fauci also was secretly welcomed into CIA headquarters to discuss the agency’s investigation into the origins of the pandemic in an attempt to “influence” its outcome, according to whistleblower testimony heard by the House panel.
The FBI and Energy Department concluded that COVID most likely leaked out of a research lab, while the CIA and other intelligence agencies “remain unable to determine the precise origin” of the pandemic, a June report found.
Former Trump administration official Dr. Robert Kadlec, who handled biodefense and epidemic response issues during the pandemic, recently told Sky News that he believes Fauci’s repeated attempts to divert attention from the so-called “lab leak theory” was intentional.
The National Institutes of Health and United States Agency for International Development contributed more than $2 million in grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was conducting gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.
Kadlec now says that Fauci had downplayed the possibility of an accidental leak to hide scrutiny of the grant funding, an effort that he also participated in to encourage the cooperation of the Chinese government.
“Part of the reason I’m still committed to trying to … bring the subject up,” Kadlec told the outlet, “is at least to say it’s important to know now what happened.”