By Trish Regan
After misleading the public for 17 months, Dr. Anthony Fauci may finally have to face the music...
This week, Senator Rand Paul criminally referred Fauci to the Department of Justice. At issue is whether "America's doctor" lied under oath to Congress.
Over the last year, Fauci repeatedly told Congress that the National Institutes of Health ("NIH") did not fund gain-of-function research into bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Yet, as recently as last weekend, Fauci was on CNN saying that it would have been negligent not to fund this research.
Which leaves us asking... Which was it, Fauci? Did we fund the Wuhan lab as records suggest or did we not?
Fauci previously told Senator Paul in a hearing that the NIH "has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the U.S. Institute of Virology."
Last week, Senator Paul asked Fauci if he'd like to retract his earlier statement, adding: "As you are aware, it is a crime to lie to Congress."
Fauci refused, however, to retract the statement... saying he had never lied to Congress while adding, "You don't know what you're talking about, quite frankly. And I would like to say that officially."
Fauci's Flip-Flop
So why did he tell CNN it would have been negligent to not fund the research, while saying something different to Congress? I suspect this is Fauci proving his stripes as a political bureaucrat...
What is clear is that Anthony Fauci certainly knew more than he was ever willing to admit... And as a result, Americans have been left in the dark for well over a year as to the origins of COVID-19.
Why did Fauci insist the virus came from a wet market?
E-mails from Fauci's account as far back as February 2020 suggest he at least knew it was conceivable that the coronavirus had been leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Yet he quite literally refused to tell the public that.
When then-President Donald Trump admitted to reporters in April 2020 that he had seen intelligence suggesting the virus came from the Wuhan lab, Trump was immediately reprehended for the comments that the mainstream media labeled as conspiratorial.
Fauci himself refuted the remarks by Trump in an interview with National Geographic magazine, saying all the scientific evidence pointed to the wet-market theory.
And yet, he knew better... He just didn't want the U.S. to know better.
Then, when President Biden took office, one of the first things he did was shut down the investigation into the Wuhan lab.
Why? Why wouldn't his team want to get to the bottom of what may have happened?
Allegedly, there were some folks in the State Department who didn't want it being known that the U.S. had helped fund the lab.
This is what you'd call a big, hot mess...
This May, the Wall Street Journal reported on some previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence that suggested yes, the virus could have come out of Wuhan and the Institute of Virology. According to the intelligence documents, three employees at the Wuhan Institute of Virology felt so ill with symptoms consistent with COVID-19 that they were hospitalized in November 2019.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization ("WHO") has taken China's side in this and said there was no reason to further investigate the Wuhan lab (where they were studying bat coronaviruses), and until the WSJ report was issued, the Biden administration was quite willing to give China a pass.
Again, I'm left scratching my head... Why was Fauci, Biden, the State Department, the WHO, and everyone in the mainstream media carrying China's water? Even now, a bill in Congress that would have required all intelligence surrounding the origins of COVID be declassified was shot down last week by Democrats.
What gives?
Fauci's Affinity for Gain-of-Function Research
I've reported this before in American Consequences, and it's worth highlighting again: In 2012, Fauci wrote a paper in which he argued that conducting experiments on contagious viruses was worth it even if the work and experiments accidentally led to a pandemic.
Writing about gain-of-function experiments in the American Society for Microbiology magazine, Fauci said these experiments could manipulate viruses and make them much stronger... and that the research was necessary, even if it resulted in a worldwide pandemic:
Scientists working in this field might say, as indeed I have said, that the benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks. The need to stay ahead of such a threat is a primary reason for performing an experiment that might appear to be risky.
"Risky." You can say that again... Millions are now dead from a virus that may have been created in a Chinese lab that we helped fund.
Is this why no one wants answers?
Perhaps... which is why it's up to us to keep demanding the truth. Senator Rand Paul is right to insist on it... and as Americans, we must keep searching for answers.
The Fauci Scapegoat
The mainstream media and the Left turned the good doctor into a poster boy of righteousness overnight. No matter how many times he contradicted himself, somehow his theories and advice were automatically taken as correct.
They hated President Trump so much that they were willing to look the other way on the obvious stuff... like the fact that a Chinese bio lab was in the same place that an infectious virus was first identified.
But Trump is no longer part of the picture... So with that in mind, I question whether the Left and the media will still rally to Fauci's defense. Indeed, it's quite possible that they may make Fauci a kind of scapegoat at this point... And he just might find himself in the crosshairs of an angry nation. Not that I have much sympathy...
Because if it's proven that Fauci was helping to fund the research that killed millions – and lied about it under oath to Congress – then he deserves to be called out for those mistakes.
Regardless of what happens, I'm still left asking:
1. Why didn't we know that the NIH was helping to fund this research in, of all places, China?
2. Why weren't we told earlier that there was a possibility the virus came from the lab?
The American public deserves to know what's going on... Without transparency trust in our system increasingly erodes. If people believe they are being lied to (and it sure seems we were), then increasingly Americans will fail to trust in our system.
And right now, the government needs its citizens to trust the system if it hopes to improve its vaccination levels.
Trish's Takeaway
Unfortunately, investors need to be prepared for "shutdown 2.0."
Travel restrictions are popping up again across the globe, and mask mandates are making a reappearance in many places after the WHO recently said vaccinated people should wear masks indoors again. (Our own Buck Sexton covered the latest "mask madness" yesterday)
As P.J. O'Rourke and I discuss in this week's podcast, politicians seem to enjoy the power trip of shutdowns... And the most dangerous thing for our economy right now would be a repeat of the 2020 lockdowns.
I remain skeptical as to whether shutdowns would translate into a sustained market sell-off... Although, I would expect some additional stock market volatility and even some down days.
But as always, the Fed stands in the wings – ready, willing, and able to print more money in an attempt to cushion the fall.
Meanwhile, the administration would likely seize the opportunity of another shutdown to send more stimulus checks and extend unemployment benefits. And so the cycle continues...
