Fauci to testify publicly before Congress for 1st time since retirement

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institution of Allergy and Infectious Disease, will testify publicly before a congressional panel in June, marking the first time he has done so since retiring from government at the end of 2022.

Fauci has agreed to testify before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, a House panel investigating the origins of COVID-19 and the government's response to the pandemic, subcommittee Chair Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, announced Wednesday. 

Wenstrup said the hearing will allow Americans to hear directly from Fauci about Fauci’s role in overseeing and shaping pandemic-era polices and promoting "singular questionable narratives" about the origins of COVID-19.

Fauci appeared in front of the Select Subcommittee for a closed-door, two-day, 14-hour transcribed interview earlier this year.

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"During Dr. Fauci’s closed-door interview in January, he testified to serious systemic failures in our public health system that deserve further investigation, including his testimony that the ‘6 feet apart’ social distancing guidance — which was used to shut down small businesses and schools across America — ‘sort of just appeared,’" Wenstrup said. 

"This raises significant concerns about public health officials and the validity of their policy recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also learned that he believes the lab leak hypothesis he publicly downplayed should not be dismissed as a conspiracy theory. As the face of America’s public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic, these statements raise serious questions that warrant public scrutiny."

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Wenstrup said that the panel will also hold a public hearing with EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter Daszak on May 1 that will serve as a crucial component into the origins of COVID-19 and provide essential background ahead of Fauci’s public hearing.

But Democrats hit back at Fauci's scheduled June 3 appearance, with Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., coming to his defense and labeling the hearing as an "extreme fishing expedition."

"Dr. Fauci is a dedicated public servant who stepped up for our nation during the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic," said Ruiz, who is the Democrats' ranking member on the panel. 

"But for fourteen months, the Republican Majority has dedicated time and taxpayer dollars to a politically motivated probe to vilify him."

"Nearly half a million pages of documents and more than a dozen transcribed interviews with current and former federal public health officials and researchers --including 14 hours of testimony from Dr. Fauci himself – have failed to uncover any evidence that he sought to cover up the pandemic's origins or suppress the lab leak theory."

Ruiz called on Republicans to release the full transcript of Fauci’s two-day interview. 

Fauci was a leading figure on both former President Trump and President Biden's coronavirus response teams. Before his retirement, he had worked for over 50 years in the American public health sector, advising every president since former President Reagan. 

Fauci was a regular guest on cable news, primetime television, late-night shows and podcasts, offering his medical advice throughout the pandemic. Over time, he became a politically divisive figure on the left and right regarding issues such as masks and lockdown policies.

Famously, he sparred with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in committee hearings over the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and whether his department within the National Institute of Health funded gain-of-function research.

Paul has claimed that recently discovered government officials from 15 federal agencies knew in 2018 that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was trying to create a coronavirus like COVID-19.   

These officials, Paul says, knew that the Chinese lab was proposing to create a COVID 19-like virus and not one of those officials revealed this scheme to the public.