Fauci at the House Select Subcommittee hearing. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Former NIAID Director Anthony Fauci on Monday denied using private e-mails to discuss government business during the pandemic and told a House COVID Select Subcommittee hearing that viral research NIH funded wasn't responsible for creating COVID-19.
Why it matters: Fauci's first Hill appearance since retiring from government service didn't reveal further communications with former aide David Morens, who wrote in an e-mail exchange with a research nonprofit that Fauci's personal account could be used to discuss COVID origins and skirt federal disclosure rules.
Driving the news: Fauci repeatedly asserted that "to the best of my knowledge I did not conduct official business through private email" in response to questions about Morens, and emphasized that it was against NIH policy to do so.
But he faced sharp questioning from Republicans on various aspects of the pandemic response, including whether he influenced research on COVID's origins and steered findings away from the theory the virus originated from a lab leak.
- "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 Select Subcommittee Chair Brad Wenstrup, recalling that families "were thrown off planes and shamed when their 2-year-olds struggled to wear a mask."
- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said Fauci belonged in prison and refused to address him as "Doctor."
Between the lines: The House panel has sought to refocus attention on NIH's work during the pandemic, specifically its funding of nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, whose backing of studies on bat coronaviruses in China put it at the center of the debate over the pandemic's origins.
- HHS suspended funding to EcoHealth last month over a series of reporting lapses on the research.
- Responding to a question from Select Subcommittee Ranking Member Raul Ruiz, Fauci asserted that according to the regulatory research definition, the NIH did not fund gain-of-function research.
- He added the EcoHealth-funded viral studies "were phylogenetically so far removed from SARS-COV-2 that it is molecularly impossible for the virus to have evolved or be made into SARS-COV-2.… It could not possibly be a progenitor of SARS-COV-2."
- Rep. Morgan Griffith asked whether it was possible for EcoHealth to have done other types of viral research not funded by the NIH that the government wasn't aware of.
- "There's a difference between the viruses that were funded by the NIH sub-award versus anything else anybody else in China might be doing," Fauci responded.
The other side: Democrats came to Fauci's defense, emphasizing his years of experience responding to outbreaks and pointing to multiple death threats that he'd received in connection with the pandemic response.
- "After 15 months, the select subcommittee does not possess a shred of evidence to substantiate these extreme allegations Republicans have levied against Dr. Fauci for nearly four years," Ruiz said.
