Hubris, horseshoe bats, humanized mice: Uncovering Fauci’s COVID lies

Originally published in New York Post   |   February 28, 2023   |   written by Justin Goodman

The Biden administration’s Department of Energy (DOE) has just joined the FBI — and countless others — in concluding a lab leak in Wuhan most likely caused the pandemic.

In response, former White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci predictably doubled down on his lab-leak dismissal — but hedged his bets.

“I don’t see any data for a lab leak. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t have happened,” he said. “We must all keep an open mind to all possibilities.”

But “we may never know” how the pandemic began.

Of course, having funded the shady Wuhan animal lab, an inconclusive origins investigation would be incredibly convenient for the good doctor.

Fortunately, the American people and Congress aren’t letting him off the hook that easily.

Congressional committees with authority to investigate what exactly happened at the taxpayer-funded Wuhan lab are finally working to get answers and accountability.

Lawmakers in states like Texas and Maine are urging the feds to take action to investigate COVID’s origin, too.

Now in the majority, House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer and Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup have launched an effort to secure testimony from Fauci about the gain-of-function experiments he recklessly funded in Wuhan and his suspicious actions following concerns about a potential lab leak.

Let me stop right here and save the so-called “fact-checkers” some trouble: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) admitted that Fauci shipped tax dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) to supercharge bat coronaviruses in gain-of-function experiments. And Fauci repeatedly lied to Congress about it.

I should know. 

In April 2020, our government watchdog group first exposed how Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, via the shady nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, spent $600,000 on bat-coronavirus and “humanized mice” experiments in Wuhan from 2014 to 2019.

Six days after our investigation hit the Daily Mail, the White House announced it was cutting off the grant to the Chinese Communist Party-run lab with military ties and a checkered biosafety record. 

Two months later, Fauci was asked during a congressional hearing why President Donald Trump killed the grant. He responded, “I don’t know the reason, but we were told to cancel it.” 

This was a lie.

Fauci’s own emails show that as early as January 2020, he worried the animal experiments he funded may have caused the pandemic. His colleagues even told him a lab leak was probable because the virus’ features “look engineered” and the Wuhan lab was like the “Wild West.”

Fauci knew exactly why the White House cut off the grant: because NIAID was orchestrating a classic coverup.

Once again, in May 2021, in response to pointed questioning from Sen. Rand Paul, Fauci swore, “The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” 

That’s also a lie. 

Damning emails the White Coat Waste Project obtained via the Freedom of Information Act show how back in 2016, Fauci’s team expressed concerns that EcoHealth’s proposal to engineer coronaviruses at the Wuhan lab constituted gain-of-function, which at the time was presciently banned by the Obama-Biden administration.

Instead of halting the project, Fauci’s minions conspired with EcoHealth to skirt the ban, avoid extra scrutiny and spend tax dollars at the Wuhan lab. 

In a now-infamous email we obtained in a FOIA lawsuit, EcoHealth head Peter Daszak told NIH, “This is terrific! We are very happy to hear that our Gain of Function research funding pause has been lifted.” 

In late 2021, after mounting public pressure, now-interim NIH Director Lawrence Tabak finally admitted in a letter to Congress that the experiments on humanized mice it funded at the Wuhan lab in 2018 and 2019 were, in fact, gain-of-function.

Tabak himself recently toed the NIH line and inexplicably testified these experiments didn’t cause the pandemic while in the same breath admitting he actually had no idea what exactly the Wuhan lab did with NIH money.

We know for sure the Wuhan lab engineered novel bat coronaviruses that were thousands of times stronger than their natural counterparts and that severely sickened and killed mice. Then a novel coronavirus with obvious signs of bioengineering first breaks out in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people who don’t have regular contact with bats.

That’s why my group is backing congressional investigations into Fauci’s fibs and COVID’s origins. We’re also supporting legislation to defund EcoHealth and the Wuhan animal lab and prohibit gain-of-function experiments.

Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to fund dangerous animal experiments that can prompt pandemics.

Stop the money. Stop the madness! 

Justin Goodman is senior vice president of advocacy and public policy at government watchdog White Coat Waste Project.