Republicans Demand Accountability Following Reports of Fauci Commissioning Paper to Discredit Lab Leak Theory

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases a
Graeme Jennings/Pool via AP
Hannah Knudsen

Dr. Anthony Fauci, former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and White House medical advisor, reportedly commissioned and approved of a paper steering the narrative on the origins of the coronavirus — ultimately attempting to discredit the lab leak theory — prompting outrage from Republicans, calling to hold him accountable.

A March 5 memo sent to members of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic reveals that Fauci, along with “at least eleven other scientists” participated in a conference call on February 1, 2020, where they were told that the coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan, China, may have leaked from a lab.

Conveniently, three days later, “four participants of the conference call authored a paper entitled ‘The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2’ (Proximal Origin) and sent a draft to Drs. Fauci and Collins,” per the memo.

“Prior to final publication in Nature Medicine, the paper was sent to Dr. Fauci for editing and approval,” the memo notes, explaining that Fauci used the paper two months later in an attempt to publicly dismiss the lab leak theory.

According to the memo:

New evidence released by the Select Subcommittee today suggests that Dr. Fauci “prompted” the drafting of a publication that would “disprove” the lab leak theory, the authors of this paper skewed available evidence to achieve that goal, and Dr. Jeremy Farrar went uncredited despite significant involvement.

Fauci would even go on to cite this study from the White House podium.

“Follow the $—the $ for the Wuhan Lab he approved. This line of questioning was pursued in our depo of Fauci as well. He didn’t want to be implicated in the Lab Leak so he dismissed it & smeared anyone who thought it plausible,” Sen. Eric. Schmitt (R-MO) said.

“He must be held accountable,” he added:

“This reminds me of how Hillary Clinton cooked up the Russia Hoax, planted it in the media, and then cited media reports to provide ‘independent’ evidence for the fabricated theory,” author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza remarked:

“We now know Fauci orchestrated a fraudulent paper he then used to dismiss #LabLeak. A 3/20 blog by his boss/co-conspirator Francis Collins: ‘this study leaves little room to refute a natural origin for COVID’ Lab origin is ‘outrageous claim’ & ‘rumor,’” the White Coat Waste Project’s Justin Goodman said:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who has long questioned Fauci and his honesty, retweeted a clip of MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace referring the lab leak theory as a Trump conspiracy theory:

“After funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab, Fauci smeared those of us who suggested the possibility of a lab leak. He must be held accountable,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said as others expressed disgust over the latest reports:

The report follows President Biden’s Department of Energy admitting the coronavirus likely stemmed from a lab leak, despite Fauci’s initial insistence that it was not the case. 

“If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated. … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species,” Fauci told National Geographic in May 2020, deeming the lab leak theory a “circular argument.” 

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