Anthony Fauci said allegations that he concealed the true origins of the coronavirus pandemic are “politically motivated” and alleged that Republican politicians had expressed a preference for “hanging” him on their election campaigns.
The president’s former chief medical adviser, who has a very visual figure in the government’s messages on COVID-19, recalled that he felt “uncomfortable” contradicting then-President Donald Trump in some of his public statements.
COVID-19 cases first appeared in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, before spreading around the world. The virus has killed more than 1. 1 million people in the United States alone, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. .
Fauci, who has been the most sensible adviser to the Trump White House coronavirus task force, has been continually accused of seeking hard-to-understand American oblique investments from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and in the past has testified that the United States has never funded studies for viruses in a laboratory.
This occurs when two U. S. intelligence agenciesThey said COVID-19 was the result of a twist of fate in a Chinese lab, rather than the virus crossing the species barrier of an inflamed animal. The revelations have revived the government’s review of the pandemic’s handling of the pandemic.
On March 5, Republicans on the coronavirus pandemic subcommittee released a memo accusing Fauci of orchestrating the publication of a clinical paper that would oppose the lab leak theory.
In an interview with Newsweek, Fauci described this as “false and misleading. “
Rand Paul, a Republican senator from Kentucky, told Fox News two days later that Fauci was guilty of “an elaborate cover-up” that Paul claimed to have done because “in the end, he would be guilty. “
Asked Tuesday about the cover-up allegations through NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said, “I think it’s pretty transparent that it’s politically motivated. “
“It’s no secret that almost every single incumbent Republican politician running — and those running for the first time — had interspersed their campaigns, you know, ‘Fauci defunct,’ ‘impeach Fauci,’ ‘hang Fauci,'””It’s a political issue. “
In April 2022, then-Oklahoma Republican Party Chairman John Bennett was filmed telling an audience that Fauci would be “by firing squad” while running for Congress. In September 2021, Wyoming State Senator Anthony Bouchard posted a meme on his Facebook page, which has since been removed as he ran for Congress illustrating the gallows and Fauci, which he captioned, “After the lawsuits, the chair, the gallows, or the deadly injection?”
Fauci said Trump was “saying things that just weren’t true,” referring to his May 2020 statement that he was taking hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug, to prevent COVID-19 infection, adding that “to maintain my non-public integrity,” he needed to “tell the truth. “
“It wasn’t comfortable having to stand up and contradict the president of the United States, because I have a lot of respect for the presidency,” Fauci said. “But I had to, and it provoked a degree of hostility where I’ve become a target and they got worse and worse. “
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump, told Newsweek: “Fauci has proven himself to be a liar and a con man. History will judge him and possibly it wouldn’t be pleasant. “
Fauci declined to comment.
The prevailing view among intelligence analysts and scientists remains that COVID-19 will most likely spread to the human population by crossing the livestock species barrier at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, a rainy market in Wuhan.
On Feb. 26, the Wall Street Journal reported that U. S. Department of Energy intelligence analysts have been working on the agenda. In the U. S. , the virus now emerged from a Chinese laboratory. Two days later, FBI Director Christopher Wray told Fox News that the company had followed this theory “for some time. “The Chinese government has continuously denied the allegations.
Fauci reiterated to Cuomo that he has “kept an open brain from day one” and continues to do so, but noted that “leading evolutionary scientists from around the world” analyzed the information and “concluded that it is more important. “He probably came here from a rainy herbal market event. “
A July 2022 study concluded, analyzing where the first human cases were concentrated, that the virus likely infected humans through the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan.
Addressing allegations that he attempted to bias a clinical paper opposed to the lab leak theory, Fauci said there was “a very open and good faith discussion” and that the scientists he spoke to “came to the conclusion that, in fact, it was more likely that it wasn’t something designed. but something that really escaped a rainy market. “
He called the indictment a “conspiracy at its peak” and “really ridiculous. “Newsweek reached out to Brad Wenstrup, chair of the coronavirus subcommittee, for comment.
The theory of laboratory leaks maintained through members of the intelligence network suggests that the virus escaped by accident, that the virus was released to the population as a form of biological weapon.
Update 3/16/23, 4:09 a. m. ET: This article was updated with comments from Trump spokesman Steven Cheung.
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