In his first public testimony since he retired from the federal government in December 2022, Dr. Anthony Fauci on Monday defended himself against Republican accusations that he had a hand in unleashing the COVID-19 virus four years ago and tried to cover up the possibility that it escaped from a Chinese lab.

What You Need To Know

  • Dr. Anthony Fauci testified on Monday before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, his first public testimony since he retired from the federal government in 2022

  • Fauci defended himself against Republicans who charged that he had a hand in unleashing the COVID-19 virus four years ago and tried to cover up the possibility that it escaped from a Chinese lab

  • There is no consensus within the U.S. government about how the virus began

  • Democrats on the subcommittee accused their GOP colleagues of a politically motivated “character assassination” of Fauci to distract from former President Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic

Testifying before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Fauci, who headed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 38 years, said that, in a conference call in early 2020, he never tried to steer scientists toward a specific conclusion.

He also read a Feb. 1, 2020, email in which he urged Dr. Jeremy Farrar, then the director of Wellcome, a health-focused charitable foundation based in London, to assemble a group of evolutionary biologists to examine data to determine if there was any validity to Farrar’s concerns that COVID-19 might have originated in a lab and then report their findings to authorities.

“It is inconceivable that anyone who reads this email could conclude that I was trying to cover up the possibility of a lab leak,” Fauci said. “I have always kept an open mind to the different possibilities.”

There is no consensus within the U.S. government about how the virus began.

While the Energy Department and FBI support the lab-leak theory, four agencies and the National Intelligence Council have concluded with low confidence that COVID-19 likely emerged after being transmitted from an animal to a human, and two other agencies have not reached a determination one way or the other.

"I have repeatedly stated that I have a completely open mind to either possibility and that if definitive evidence becomes available to validate or refute either theory, I will ready accept," Dr. Fauci said in his prepared opening statement.

For years, congressional Republicans have suggested that research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China funded by the National Institutes of Health, for which Fauci worked, may have helped create the COVID-19 virus and have sought to link Fauci.

The panel’s investigation revealed that Dr. David Morens, a former aide to Fauci, advised EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak, used his private email account to shield information from public records laws and government oversight, and claimed he had destroyed evidence.

EcoHealth, a global nonprofit group that aims to protect wildlife and public health from emerging diseases, also failed to meet deadlines to submit reports to the government on its research, the subcommittee said.

The Department of Health and Human Services has suspended EcoHealth’s access to federal grants and may block the group from all future funding. EcoHealth plans to appeal the decision.

Fauci said there was no way NIH’s funding could have yielded COVID-19 because the viruses EcoHealth was studying under the grant “were phylogenetically so far removed from SARS-CoV-2 that it is molecularly impossible for those viruses to have evolved.”

In addition, he said the research did not involve the regulatory and operative definition of  “gain of function” — the practice of enhancing a virus in a lab to study its potential impact in the real world. Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the committee, said some Republicans were using a broader definition of the term, one that would also include the manufacture of flu vaccines.

In one email between Morens to Daszak, Morens claimed Fauci was trying to protect EcoHealth. Morens also said information could be sent to Fauci through Fauci’s personal email.

Fauci sought to distance himself from Morens, whose actions he condemned. Fauci said he was unaware of those actions and Morens’ emails with Daszak. Fauci said Morens did not advise him “on institute policy or other substantive issues."

Fauci said he has no recollection of ever conducting official business through personal email and insisted he never told Morens he would protect Daszak.

That did not stop Republicans on the committee from trying to link Fauci directly to wrongdoing.

“The office you directed, and those serving under your leadership, chose to flout the law and bragged about it,” said Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, the panel’s chair. “Why did you allow your office to be unaccountable to the American people?”

Added Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va.: "It is hard to believe that all of this occurred without your knowledge.”

Democrats on the subcommittee accused their GOP colleagues of a politically motivated “character assassination” of Fauci to distract from former President Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic.

“They're treating you, Dr. Fauci, like a convicted felon. Actually, you probably wish they were treating you like a convicted felon. They treat convicted felons with love and admiration,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a reference to Trump being found guilty last week in New York of falsifying business records.

During one heated exchange, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right critic of Fauci, was reprimanded for refusing to refer to him as "Dr. Fauci."

Greene accused Dr. Fauci of "making up guidelines" about social distancing and masking children, adding: "Do you think that's appropriate, do the American people deserve to be abused like that, Mr. Fauci? Because you're not 'doctor,' you're 'Mr. Fauci' in my few minutes [of questioning]."

As Dr. Fauci started to answer her question, she continued ranting, saying, "Nah, I don't need your answer."

Rep. Raskin objected to her line of questioning, asking the panel's chairman: "In terms of the rules of decorum, are we allowed to deny that a doctor is a doctor just because we don't want him to be a doctor?"

"Yes, because in my time, that man does not deserve to have a license," she interjected. "As a matter of fact, it should be revoked and he belongs in prison."

Wenstrup conceded that Greene "should recognize the doctor as a doctor."

Ruiz said the Republicans’ investigation has produced no evidence supporting their claims against Fauci and accused GOP lawmakers of not being focused on conclusively determining the origin of COVID-19 so that the United States may prevent or be better prepared for a future pandemic.

“The Chinese Communist Party has blocked access to important information that could help confirm the origin of the virus,” said Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla. “This committee should be doing more to fight for those answers, but instead has wasted significant time and taxpayer money fueling conspiracy theories and ignoring the importance of preparing for the next deadly pandemic.”

Republicans continued to suggest Fauci suppressed the lab-leak theory.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., asked Fauci why he previously referred to the possibility of a lab leak as a “distortion of reality” and “conspiracy theories.”

Fauci said he never dismissed the lab-leak theory as a whole, only some of the context that some were using to support it.

“Like it was a lab leak and I was parachuted into the CIA like Jason Bourne and told the CIA that they should really not be talking about a lab leak,” he said.