Anthony Fauci’s testimony – or lack thereof – in front of the Senate Homeland Security Committee was a disgraceful new chapter in one of the great scandals in modern history. Fauci’s invocation of his Fifth Amendment right over 100 times was a telling and shameful response to a critical inquiry, and he deserves to be held in contempt for failing to cooperate. For a man who once described himself as “Science” incarnate, what could he possibly have to hide, and why would he not wish to share his knowledge with the American people?
The reason is simple, and well-established by the evidence collected over the past six years. Dr. Fauci and his close associates at the NIH deliberately misled the American people about numerous matters in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic – including the origins of the virus itself.
As Secretary of State, I was one of many in the government who strongly suspected that the virus came from the CCP-run Wuhan Institute of Virology, given what we knew about the lab’s well-known coronavirus research program, as well as the gain-of-function research conducted at that facility. (“Gain-of-function” refers to the dangerous practice of altering viruses to make them more virulent and contagious for the ostensible purpose of developing more effective vaccines. Thankfully, President Trump’s second Administration has prohibited federal funding for this kind of research.)
As early as January 2020, Fauci wrote in his private diary that the virus appeared not to have been transmitted directly from animals to humans in a Wuhan wet market, saying, “[W]e know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier.” Early emails between Fauci and his colleagues in government and close collaborators in the field of virology show that they were fully aware that this risky research was going on, and that a lab leak was entirely plausible.
But suddenly, the direction of inquiry took a sharp turn away from hypotheses outside of animal-to-human transmission. At Fauci’s prompting, a group of scientists published a research paper in March 2020 dismissing the lab leak theory and asserting the zoonotic transmission theory – a paper subsequently cited by Fauci and his allies as Gospel.
Aided by a compliant and politically biased press, Fauci and his gang colluded to suppress any credible discussion of the lab leak hypothesis. They dismissed anyone who sought to investigate the lab leak theory as conspiracy theorists – from Senator Tom Cotton (AR) to eminent experts in the field – and declined to push for answers from his Chinese counterparts.
As Secretary of State (and facing serious headwinds from the NIH), we conducted our own investigation, and in my final days in office put together a fact sheet based on those assessments. We did not claim to know with certainty whether the virus had leaked from a lab or not, as we did not have access to the CCP’s closely guarded case data and information surrounding the virus. But we gave the American people the transparency they deserved: laying out the facts, encouraging continued investigation by the incoming Administration, and demanding transparency from the Chinese Communist Party.
As soon as President Biden took office, that investigation was shut down – but the effort to get to the truth continued in the House and Senate. Over the past six years, the accumulated evidence not only validated our position, but it also became increasingly clear that Fauci and his allies had more mendacious reasons for suppressing discussion of the lab leak hypothesis. Emails revealed that Fauci not only knew that the Wuhan lab was conducting gain-of-function research on coronaviruses, but that this very lab had received funding from the NIH without proper oversight.
As one of his final acts as President, President Biden issued a pardon of Anthony Fauci covering the years 2014 to the date of his pardon in January 2025. Why would such a measure be necessary if the good doctor’s conduct was above board, as his defenders have always insisted? Could it have anything to do with the substantial documented evidence indicating that Dr. Fauci knowingly and intentionally suppressed information relating to the origins of this virus and the NIH’s funding for dangerous gain-of-function research in China on his watch?
The damage caused by Fauci’s lies and hubris to our children and to our society is incalculable. Trust in public health institutions has cratered and will take years to rebuild. What’s more, critical evidence that would aid us in holding those responsible for this devastating pandemic – and preventing the next one – has been suppressed or destroyed.
The American people deserve answers. We must not rest until we get them.
