Cover-up Begins to Crumble
The attempt to uncover the origins of Covid-19 has made shockingly little progress in four years of congressional inquiries and scientific investigation. Why can no one penetrate the mystery of how the global disease that claimed so many millions of lives began?
China’s refusal to cooperate with an investigation into the Wuhan lab where risky experiments with corona viruses were being conducted, is undoubtedly a key reason for the failure to unearth the facts.
But as a special House Oversight Committee has demonstrated, evidence points to a cover-up orchestrated in this country as well. Powerful senior officials in the National Institute of Health (NIH) and National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), appear to have effectively stymied the search for answers about the outbreak.
Thanks to a trove of more than 150 revealing emails from high-ranking individuals in these offices recently obtained by the House panel, that cover-up has begun to unravel, the New York Post reported.
Some of the most incriminating emails were from David Morens, senior aide to Dr. Anthony Fauci who formerly headed NIAID and served as the White House chief medical advisor on the pandemic.
In one email, Morens bragged about evading Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and deleting federal records, among other explosive revelations.
“I learned from our FOIA lady here how to make emails disappear after I am “FOIA’d” but before the search starts, so I think we’re all safe,” Fauci’s top aide wrote in one email. “Plus I deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to Gmail.”
Morens wrote in some of the emails that he and Fauci also had a “secret back channel” to thwart congressional investigations about Covid-19.
The newly released emails from Morens open a window on a broad-based conspiracy to cover up the role of Morens, Fauci and a third party, Peter Daszak, head of EcoHealth Alliance, in facilitating gain-of-function research at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, analysts say.
Fauci has already been caught lying about Covid-19 several times. The fact that EcoHealth Alliance was conducting high-risk experiments on coronaviruses at Wuhan with NIH dollars, something Fauci had repeatedly denied, explains why the NIH might have felt a need to deliberate in secret.
Emails say that the NIH was working to protect EcoHealth Alliance’s and the NIH’s reputations.
“Peter, from Tony’s recent numerous comments to me … they are trying to protect you, which also protects their own reputation,” Morens wrote.
Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-AZ, read aloud half a dozen emails written by Morens in which he discussed not just how to avoid FOIA but how to “erase” emails so they could not be retrieved.
“Just who will be implicated in the fallout from the apparent conspiracy to hide the truth is unclear, but the matter has been referred to the Department of Justice for criminal investigation,” writes the Washington Times. (Willfully avoiding FOIA is a federal crime.)
At least one person, Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, who has frequently sparred with Fauci, said the conspiracy goes higher than Morens.
“I believe Anthony Fauci was in charge of the entire conspiracy,” Paul said.
Secrecy and Kickbacks
Gain of function is a laboratory technique that genetically manipulates a virus and can increase its transmissibility and toxicity. The technique is risky because it can be used to alter a virus into a bioweapon. It is also illegal in this country.
A shocking email exchange on May 28, 2021, shows that NIH’s Office of the General Counsel instructed the agency’s FOIA office to “not release anything having to do with EcoHealth Alliance/WIV (Wuhan Institute of Virology).”
Alarmingly, the emails released last Wednesday show Morens lightheartedly discussed getting “a kickback” for his assistance to the disgraced Manhattan-based EcoHealth Alliance, which funded experiments on novel bat coronaviruses at the WIV between 2014 and 2021.
“Do I get a kickback???? ” Morens joked with Daszak after EcoHealth secured a $7.5 million grant in August 2020. “Of course you get a kickback,” responded Daszak.
“I just hope it doesn’t culminate in 5 years in Federal jail,” Morens wrote back.
Under questioning by committee members, Morens denied having received compensation and laughed off the email as “typical black humor between people like Peter and me and other folks who show up in these emails.”
“I don’t think any of us think this is a funny joke,” Staten Island GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis shot back. “You are representing the United State government, you’re representing an agency and you’re asking a grantee, ‘Do I get a kickback?’”
Many of the emails between Morens and Daszak granted EcoHealth “inside information” about the status of grants Daszak had applied for, including a more than $4 million NIH award for a controversial project titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.”
That project, which was briefly suspended during the pandemic and then reinstated in 2023, conducted risky gain-of-function experiments on SARS-like viruses that made them 10,000 times more infectious, in violation of the NIH grant’s terms, the Washington Times article reported.
NIH principal deputy director Lawrence Tabak finally confirmed the gain of function experiments occurred — after more than four years of denials — in sworn congressional testimony in May.
Following that hearing, EcoHealth Alliance was suspended from receiving any further US grants, based on its failure to hand over its reports on research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was determined to have sub-standard biosafety levels.
‘Americans Know Hypocrisy When They See It’
In his first voluntary appearance on Capitol Hill since he stepped down in January as head of NIAID, Dr. Fauci appeared before the House committee on Monday. In three hours of testimony, he tried to mend earlier statements he had made in a January hearing that had sparked disbelief or ridicule, or that were exposed as fabrications.
Earlier investigations into the government’s botched Covid response and the origins of the coronavirus had reached a dead end while Fauci was still in office, with GOP lawmakers vowing to continue their probe after he stepped down.
In a scathing opening statement on Monday to the House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Rep. Wenstrup, R-OH, condemned Fauci’s position as an authority on the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said that Fauci, 83, had presided over “one of the most invasive regimes of domestic policy the US has ever seen,” citing radical restrictions that we now know had no supporting scientific evidence.
“Americans were aggressively bullied, shamed and silenced for merely questioning or debating issues such as social distancing, masks, vaccines, or the origins of COVID,” said committee chair Wenstrup in his remarks.
“If I make a mistake, I answer to the people of Ohio and my own conscience,” the Ohio congressman said, turning to the former director of NIAID. “When you or your agency made mistakes, Dr. Fauci, what happened? You took the position that you presented ‘the science.’ Your words came across as final and as infallible in matters pertaining to the pandemic.”
“You once said, ‘If you disagree with me you disagree with science,’” Wenstrup told Fauci. “Americans do not hate science. But Americans know hypocrisy when they see it.”
Social Distancing Rule ‘Just Sort of Appeared’
While questioning Fauci about social distancing mandates he had promoted during the pandemic, Rep. Marjorie Tayler Greene heatedly accused NIAID’s former director of having admitted, in an earlier hearing in January, that there was no scientific data behind this regulation.
She berated Fauci for “making the rules up” himself, all the while insisting he was “following the science.”
In that earlier extraordinary admission, Fauci had indeed stated that the “6 ft. social distancing” requirement was never backed by science—it “sort of just appeared,” to use his exact words.
This doctrine, framed as a vital strategy for limiting the spread of Covid, became the core of a fear-mongering campaign that led to sweeping lockdowns on both sides of the Atlantic, responsible for wreaking havoc across human society.
The lockdowns were the costliest public-policy mistake ever made during peacetime in America, critics say. The world’s leading epidemiologists had warned that lockdowns would be futile and cause terrible collateral damage, which is why they were never before attempted on a grand scale, but Fauci ignored that advice.
In response to inquiries at the hearing, NIAID’s former director refused to acknowledge the harm that resulted from school closings and mass quarantines; that they killed far more people than they saved, plunged millions into poverty and bankruptcy, and wreaked havoc in the lives of children.
In his testimony on Monday, he claimed that the question of whether lockdowns harmed society was “iffy,” that “some studies indicated they did and others indicated they didn’t.”
In response to Rep. Greene, Fauci tried to patch up his outrageous comments that the 6-foot social distancing rule had “sort of just appeared.” He insisted the CDC—“not me”—had promulgated the 6-foot rule and admitted “it wasn’t backed by clinical trials.”
The Georgia congresswoman was relentless, reminding Fauci that the 6 ft. rule was also a key reason for the mask mandates that were imposed from coast to coast on Fauci’s behest, as the pandemic spread.
Unmasked!
Rep. Greene then pulled out a blown up photo displaying Fauci sitting with his wife and a friend at a baseball game in July 2020 during the lockdown period. Fauci has his mask pulled down; except for him and the two women, the bleachers are totally empty.
The congresswoman railed at Fauci for his “hypocrisy” in banning ordinary Americans from attending outdoor sports games, while failing to follow through with his own masking regulations and enjoying a baseball game at the stadium.
She also slammed Fauci for false messaging. She held up a placard quoting Fauci’s advice to a colleague in an email dated Feb.2020, and read it aloud to the committee. “The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through material,” Fauci had told former Secretary of Health Sylvia Burwell in the email. He added that he did not recommend that she mask up.
A few months later, Greene noted, “America’s Doctor” changed his tune and insisted masking was essential to halting the spread of the pandemic. Fauci went from saying “there is no need to mask up” to recommending double and triple masking.
“Mr. Fauci, you were quoted on CBS ‘Face the Nation’ saying, ‘it’s easy to criticize, but they’re really criticizing science, because I represent science. Do you represent science, Mr. Fauci?” Greene asked, showing a visual clip from a TV interview in which he made this assertions.
“I’m a scientist and that means I use the scientific method,” Fauci responded.
“Do you represent science? It’s a yes or no answer,” Rep. Greene repeated.
“I don’t think it is,” Fauci responded.
Well, “we’ll take that as ‘you don’t know what you represent,’” Greene shot back. She then showed photos of a “scientific experiment” she said that tortured dogs to death, accusing Fauci of having funded these experiments.
Beagles Were Tormented in Cruel Experiments
Greene asserted that NIAID, under Fauci, directed $424,455 to researchers at the University of Georgia in September 2020 to infect dozens of beagles with disease-causing parasites that eventually killed the dogs. The purpose? To test an experimental drug on them, according to documents obtained by White Coat Waste Project (WCW) and reviewed by the Daily Caller.
“I want to tell you this is disgusting and evil, what you signed off on and these experiments that happened to beagles paid for by the American taxpayer, and I want you to know Americans don’t pay their taxes for animals to be tortured like this. This type of science that you are representing, Mr. Fauci, is abhorrent and it needs to stop,” Greene declared.
She then held up a photograph of children in a classroom, each isolated in his/her own plastic tent. “This is a perfect display of your ‘science,’—young children forced into plastic bubbles in their classroom because of your social distancing mandates,” she addressed Fauci.
In another enlarged photo Rep. Greene displayed for the committee, very young children squat on the floor masked, six feet apart from each other. “This is what children all across America were forced to endure because of your evil, revolting ‘science,’” Greene said.
Before signing off, Greene cited a new report from the NY Post: “NIH scientists made $710 million in royalties from drug makers. A fact that’s been hidden.”
“Is it right for scientists and doctors getting paid by the American people, government taxpayer paychecks, to get patents where they’re paid millions and hundreds of millions of dollars in royalty fees?” she asked Fauci.
In closing, she added, “You should be prosecuted from crimes against humanity,” finishing with, “You belong in prison, Dr. Fauci.”
Fauci Praises Covid Vaccines While Forced to Admit They Failed
Rep. Michael Cloud, R-TX, took Dr. Anthony Fauci to task for backing sweeping Covid-19 vaccine mandates on employers, students and US troops.
“Vaccines save lives; it is very, very clear that vaccines have saved hundreds of thousands of Americans,” Fauci asserted in response.
“We’re talking about Covid-19,” Cloud interrupted. “Did or do the Covid-19 vaccines stop anyone from getting Covid?”
“Well, it’s complex,” Fauci hedged. “In the beginning, it clearly prevented infection in a certain percentage of people, but its durability was not long — it was measured in months,” Fauci admitted. “It did not prevent transmission.”
Three years ago, in 2021, the infectious diseases expert claimed that vaccinated Americans would halt the virus’s spread. Those who were vaccinated, he promised, would bring the coronavirus to “a dead end.”
“Vaccinated people do not get or spread Covid-19,” he insisted at the time. “The data are right in front of you and you know exactly what you need to do.” He made this claim on June 22, 2021. Fast forward one month and Fauci was forced to reverse himself or be proven a liar.
In a July 31, 2021 video appearance, Fauci admitted how little the vaccines actually accomplish. He acknowledged that based on the data he had seen, vaccinated people were getting sick with the Delta strain with as much frequency as the unvaccinated.
Fauci also admitted that vaccination didn’t even lower one’s likelihood of spreading the illness. As studies poured in, demonstrating the vaccines’ waning effects, he could not deny the ever-declining rates of mRNA efficacy, and ultimately its “negative protection.”
Strikingly, this did not prevent Fauci from making fantastic claims at Monday’s hearing not only that vaccines “saved hundreds of thousands of Americans,” but that unvaccinated Americans had caused “up to 300,000 deaths.”
He offered no evidence or scientific studies to support these claims, and while committee members drew his attention to the inconsistency and contradictions in his testimony, he stubbornly dug in his heels.
Getting Caught in a Lie
Fauci was grilled about his role in suppressing the so-called “lab leak” hypothesis for the origin of SARS-CoV-2 — and for denying that NIH, the agency overseeing NIAID, funded risky gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
In the January closed-door hearing, faced with an email he had written that acknowledged his agency’s funding of gain of function experiments, Fauci had told the committee the term “gain of function” means something other than what is commonly assumed.
He cited a new definition for “gain of function” that, following his testimony on Capitol Hill, has since replaced an earlier one on the NIH website. Today, old term “gain of function” can no longer be found on the website.
“Dr. Fauci repeatedly played semantics with the definition of “gain of function” in an attempt to avoid conceding that NIH funded potentially dangerous research in China,” noted committee chairman Brad Wenstrup.
The alleged duplicity infuriated Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky, who said Fauci, should “go to prison” over his “dishonesty” in handling the Covid-19 pandemic and habitual lying to Congress. Sen. Paul accused Fauci of directly contributing to the deaths of millions with his decision to “fund illegal research.”
In an op-ed on Fox News, Sen. Rand Paul explained how Fauci and the NIH wiggled out of responsibility for the dangerous research at Wuhan by “scrubbing the NIH website of its ‘gain-of-function’ definition,” and substituting a new one.
Paul added that “worldwide approximately 15 million people died – the memory of their deaths demands that we have more scrutiny of this dangerous research.”
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Fauci Exempted Wuhan From Safety Review
In a recent appearance on Fox and Friends, Sen. Rand Paul discussed Dr. Fauci’s fateful decision to circumvent a federal protocol requiring scientists to submit their research proposals to a committee who would assess whether it passed the safety bar.
“Fauci made the judgment on his own to fund this dangerous gain-of-function research,” said Paul. “He went around the system. We had set up a system where researchers are supposed to go before a committee who would judge whether the experiments should be funded, in terms of safety concerns. Fauci exempted Wuhan from the committee.
“In the end, there was a leak from the lab and millions of people died worldwide,” Sen. Paul went on. “This didn’t happen accidentally. The leak may have been accident, but the funding wasn’t accidental.
“So yes, he does bear responsibility in funding this dangerous research–maybe one of the worst judgment errors in the history of modern public health. If gain of function didn’t cause this ferocious pandemic, it most certainly can cause the next one.”
Dr. Fauci headed NIAID for over 38 years, retiring with the largest salary in the entire federal government.
