Over the course of the pandemic, my estimation of Dr. Anthony Fauci steadily deteriorated, especially has he leaned into his celebrity status, arrogantly dismissing detractors and cynically framing criticisms of him as attacks on Science Itself. He's also been proven inconsistent and wrong on a number of fronts -- including effectively running interference for the Chinese Communist Party -- to the point that I finally called for him to be removed as a public-facing messenger on COVID. He's been doing more harm than good for quite some time. While I believe he should stay away from the cameras at this point, there are questions that he should be pushed on, if we want to achieve any semblance of accountability for the myriad disastrous mistakes public officials made over the last few years. In a number of key respects, officials who embraced Faucism ended up inflicting enormous harm on their constituents and communities.
On the crucial question of the origin of the deadly disease that killed millions around the world, Fauci has repeatedly downplayed and undermined the increasingly likely 'lab leak' theory, which was wrongly censored and assailed as 'misinformation' or a 'conspiracy theory' by many in the media and ruling class. Indeed, a man whose work deserved intense scrutiny, and who was financially and professionally invested in the lab leak premise being verboten, personally thanked Fauci for his efforts to swat down the viable hypothesis:
Peter Daszak, a zoologist whose non-profit steered U.S. funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, thanked Dr. Anthony Fauci for pushing back on the theory that the coronavirus leaked from a lab, in an April 2020 email published as part of a FOIA request by Buzzfeed. Daszak’s organization, the EcoHealth Alliance, funneled $3.4 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health to the WIV to study bat coronaviruses between 2014 and 2019. While politicians and scientists in the U.S. have suggested that the novel coronavirus initially leaked from the WIV before spreading across the globe, Daszak has vehemently denied the allegation. “I just wanted to say a personal thank you on behalf of our staff and collaborators, for publicly standing up and stating that the scientific evidence supports a natural origin for COVID-19 from a bat-to-human spillover, not a lab release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Daszak wrote to Fauci on April 18, 2020. “From my perspective, your comments are brave, and coming from your trusted voice, will help dispel the myths being spun around the virus’s origins,” Daszak added. Fauci responded to Daszak’s email on April 19, writing “Many thanks for your kind note.”
We're now learning of a new wrinkle in this wider saga:
🚨BREAKING🚨
— Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (@COVIDSelect) March 5, 2023
New evidence suggests Dr. Fauci prompted the drafting of “Proximal Origins” to disprove the lab leak theory, the authors of this paper skewed available evidence to achieve that goal, and Dr. Jeremy Farrar went uncredited despite significant involvement.
New emails uncovered by House Republicans probing the COVID-19 pandemic reveal the deceptive nature of Dr. Anthony Fauci. They show he “prompted” or commissioned — and had final approval on — a scientific paper written specifically in February 2020 to disprove the theory that the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China. Eight weeks later, Fauci stood at a White House press conference alongside President Donald Trump and cited that paper as evidence that the lab leak theory was implausible while pretending it had nothing to do with him and he did not know the authors. “There was a study recently,” he told reporters on April 17, 2020, when asked if the virus could have come from a Chinese lab, “where a group of highly qualified evolutionary virologists looked at the sequences … in bats as they evolve and the mutations that it took to get to the point where it is now is totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human. “So, the paper will be available. I don’t have the authors right now, but we can make it available to you.” That paper, titled “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” was sent to Fauci for editing in draft form and again for final approval before it was published in Nature Medicine on Feb. 17, 2020...The House Oversight subcommittee published emails Sunday in which the paper’s co-author Dr. Kristian Andersen admits Fauci “prompted” him to write the paper with the goal to “disprove” the lab leak theory.
Fauci should be asked about all of this, especially as someone whose influence impacted what a lot of scientists and doctors were willing to say out loud -- some of whom had federal grant money to worry about. Why was he so invested in the unproven 'natural origin' theory, and why did he falsely blame Trump for some of the Chinese government's indefensible actions? He's exhibited shocking naivety, at best, when it comes to China, in other aspects of this global catastrophe, as well. I'm not eager to see Fauci under studio lights, as he has been countless times, but I am eager to see him under the bright lights of a Congressional hearing room. Under oath. Of course, the reflexively tribal media also played a role in so many COVID errors and actual misinformation (while promiscuously labeling all sorts of ideas they disagreed with as 'misinformation'). Here's the latest example to emerge:
In recent days, the theory that COVID originated from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology has been embraced by FBI Director Christopher Wray and a bombshell report indicated that the U.S. Energy Department believes the virus likely started in the lab, a sentiment expressed by top Trump administration officials nearly from the outset. But in the early months of the pandemic, then-CNN president Jeff Zucker would not allow his network to chase down the lab-leak story because he believed it was a "Trump talking point," according to a well-placed CNN insider. "People are slowly waking up from the fog," the insider told Fox News Digital. "It is kind of crazy that we didn't chase it harder."
...CNN host Fareed Zakaria once said "the far right has now found its own virus conspiracy theory" while discussing the possibility of a lab leak. CNN anchor John Vause called Cotton’s theory "misinformation" on air during a conversation with Dr. Anthony Fauci that year, who responded that "theories that are not based on evidence and facts often can really mislead people." A CNN headline from April 2020 reading "Nearly 30% in the US believe a coronavirus theory that’s almost certainly not true" was based on a Pew Research poll taken at the time. "Its origin is up for debate, but it wasn’t made in a lab," CNN reported...On May 5, 2020, CNN published an analysis by Chris Cillizza, who has since been laid off from the network, headlined, "Anthony Fauci just crushed Donald Trump’s theory on the origins of the coronavirus."
Good work, 'facts first.' I'll leave you with my on-air conversation about these exact issues with our own Katie Pavlich:
.@KatiePavlich: Why Would Fauci Be So Desperate To Quash The Lab Leak Theory?#FoxNews #Fauci #Covid https://t.co/2EHUlFLsnu
— The Guy Benson Show (@GuyBensonShow) March 6, 2023
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