Questions center on U.S.-funded research and Fauci’s categorical 2021 testimony—not evidence that he created COVID.
Documented points of dispute
- NIH funded an EcoHealth Alliance subaward for bat-coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. A 2023 HHS inspector-general audit found that NIH and EcoHealth missed opportunities to monitor the work, including a progress report submitted nearly two years late and an experiment that NIH said crossed a viral-growth reporting threshold.
- In 2021, Fauci told Congress categorically that NIH had not funded “gain-of-function” research in Wuhan. NIH officials later acknowledged that the work fit the term’s broad scientific meaning; Fauci says he was using the narrower federal definition for especially risky research. That distinction is real, but his categorical answer obscured it.
- Fauci’s diaries show that he and other scientists considered a laboratory origin early in 2020 before he publicly leaned toward natural spillover. That makes scrutiny of how the public case was presented legitimate; the entries alone do not prove a cover-up.
[TS] This has been a recurring theme and a difficult test question for Republicans, but Trump was, in fact, the president in 2020.
Fauci was the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), plus a presidential adviser. NIAID is not an independent agency. Trump possessed the authority to dismiss Fauci all on his own and at any time. Instead of dismissing him, Trump called Fauci a “disaster” and an “idiot” late in the 2020 campaign. And what did he do on his last full day in office? Awarded Fauci a presidential commendation.
All of the fury at the hearing yesterday around social distancing, masks, school closures, and any other COVID policies happened under Trump in 2020 (which continued under Biden). And yet, no Republican will dare claim or mention this or that the ultimate responsibility rested with Trump.