The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (Select Subcommittee) has revealed that it has received “concerning information” regarding the Central Intelligence Agency’s investigation into the origins of COVID-19.
According to information gathered by the Select Subcommittee, Dr. Anthony Fauci, then-director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, played a role in the Central Intelligence Agency’s review of the origins of COVID-19.
As the Committee relates, Dr. Fauci appears to have been escorted into Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Headquarters—without a record of entry—and participated in the analysis to “influence” the Agency’s review.
“The American people deserve the truth—to know the origins of the virus and whether there was a concerted effort by public health authorities to suppress the lab leak theory for political or national security purposes,” the committee said. “Accordingly, information regarding specific movements of Dr. Fauci throughout the pandemic is reasonable and hardly intrusive, especially considering he is no longer employed by the federal government, he is no longer a protectee of the Inspector General, and we are not requesting any information regarding his current movements.”
The committee had earlier uncovered evidence that Fauci abused his influence to sway researchers away from the “lab leak theory” of the origins of SARS-CoV-2, misled Congress about his role in this investigation, and indeed may have been a principle author of the now-infamous paper, “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2.”
The House subcommittee on March 5 issued a memorandum on its findings that Dr. Fauci had inappropriately influenced the Covid origins researchers, contrary to the researchers’ assertions to the contrary. The memorandum states as follows:
The evidence available to the Select Subcommittee suggests that Dr. Anthony Fauci “prompted” Dr. Kristian Andersen, Professor, Scripps Research (Scripps), to write Proximal Origin and that the goal was to “disprove” any lab leak theory.
On August 18, 2021, Scripps responded to then-Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member, James Comer, and then-Committee on the Judiciary Ranking Member, Jim Jordan’s, July 29, 2021, letter to Dr. Andersen. In this letter, Scripps asserts that Dr. Andersen “objectively” investigated the origins and that Dr. Anthony Fauci did not attempt to influence his work. Both statements do not appear to be supported by the available evidence.
The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic adds that “The Goal of Proximal Origin Was to ‘Disprove’ A Lab Theory.” This is based on statements made by Dr. Kristian Anderson, the lead author.
“Our main work over the last couple of weeks has been focused on trying to disprove any type of lab theory…” Anderson wrote in a February 8, 2020 email.
The memorandum reveals how the researchers believed that the natural evolution hypothesis rested on dubious assertions.
On January 31, 2020, Andersen emailed the then-director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Anthony Fauci, to warn about the origins of the virus.
“Some of the features look engineered,” Andersen warned Fauci in the email.
The “genome looks inconsistent with evolutionary theory,” the scientist added. After the email, Andersen then spoke with Fauci on the phone regarding his findings about the virus. Just days later, Andersen changed his tune.
On February 1, Dr. Fauci emailed his long-time deputy, Dr. Hugh Auchincloss. In the email, Dr. Fauci attached a paper written by Dr. Ralph Baric and Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi – the so-called “bat woman” from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). The paper highlighted taxpayer-funded gain-of-function research on coronaviruses conducted by the WIV.
Dr. Fauci told Dr. Auchincloss: “It is essential that we speak this [morning]. Keep your cell phone on . . . read this paper . . . you will have tasks today that must be done.”
After the phone calls arranged by Dr. Fauci (and all emails surrounding this phone call have thus far been redacted), Anderson flipped his story 180 degrees.
“The main crackpot theories going around at the moment related to this virus being somehow engineered… and that is demonstrably false,” Andersen wrote on February 4, 2020.
Anderson had previously received millions in grants from the National Institutes of Health and indeed received a grant for $1.88 million shortly after his call with Fauci. Dr. Andrew Huff, co-founder of Eco-Health Alliance, testified under oath that NIH funding for Dr. Anderson’s total continuing research funding increased from approximately $7 million per year to nearly $24 million per year following the Fauci phone call.
Nonetheless, the authors would state definitively in the “Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” paper that a lab leak theory for SARS-CoV-2’s origins was “improbable.”
“Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus,” the authors wrote.
The researchers instead proposed a natural evolution hypothesis, while not revealing their doubts about their hypotheses in the paper.
“It is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation of a related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus,” the researchers states.
“Instead, we propose two scenarios that can plausibly explain the origin of SARS-CoV-2: (i) natural selection in an animal host before zoonotic transfer; and (ii) natural selection in humans following zoonotic transfer,” they added.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Energy have independently backed the “lab leak theory” as the most probable origin of Covid.
