The steady release of Anthony Fauci’s early 2020 communications with scientists who depended on his good graces for research funding has left Democratic lawmakers with few options for defending their early characterization of the COVID-19 lab-leak hypothesis as a conspiracy theory and blocking declassification legislation on COVID origins.
They fell back on familiar themes at the first hearing of the Republican-led House coronavirus pandemic subcommittee Wednesday — white supremacy and former President Trump’s failures — while now questioning whether the world could ever pin down COVID’s origin.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) claimed that Trump praised Chinese COVID policies at least 42 times in a “fawning, starstruck, sycophantic embrace” of President Xi Jinping’s messaging. “Let’s take the politics out of it,” Raskin concluded.
“Unfounded conspiracy theories” is how Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) characterized claims based on communications involving the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or describing conversations with him, in the pandemic’s first few months.
She parroted Fauci’s recent New York Times claim that he “repeatedly” called for “an open mind” on COVID origins despite a Feb. 9, 2020 interview where Fauci called lab-leak a conspiracy theory.
2. This Fauci statement is false.
On a Feb. 9, 2020, podcast hosted by Newt Gingrich, Fauci dismissed a Chinese lab accident.
FAUCI: “I've heard these conspiracy theories. And like all conspiracy theories, Newt, they're just conspiracy theories.” https://t.co/KIQ4US5oPp pic.twitter.com/d2WGFHMAfW
— Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) March 8, 2023
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