A top House Republican says he ‘likes the idea’ that Dr. Anthony Fauci could face criminal charges over his conduct during COVID and for lying to Congress.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., charged the former health official with lying to Congress and making up social distancing rules that became a staple in social life during the pandemic years.
‘I don’t know that I said he should be arrested, but I like the idea,’ Comer told Fox Business’ Stuart Varney on Tuesday. ‘At the end of the day, if you lie to Congress, that’s a felony.’
His claims came a day after Fauci testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, where he blamed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with making up the six-foot social distancing rule. Previously Fauci said the rule ‘sort of just appeared.’
‘Everyone knows that Doctor Fauci was the lead instigator in the spacing distance,’ Comer charged.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testifies during a House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, June 3. He said the CDC created the six foot social distancing rule at the meeting. He previously testified before the panel the rule ‘sort of just appeared’
‘The damage that Dr. Fauci did to our nation is indeterminable,’ the Republican added.
‘This is not only something that shutdown tens of thousands of businesses in America and ran the debt up as a result … it destroyed public education.’
‘Kids couldn’t be in school because of the six foot social distancing requirements that Dr. Fauci championed.’
‘That should offend every business owner that struggled, every business owner that lost their business and every parent – like myself and my wife – whose kids went to public schools and had to go to virtual learning and basically didn’t learn anything for a year.’
Dr. Anthony Fauci made several stunning admissions during testimony before Congress Monday as Republicans sought to pin blame on him for pandemic-era blunders.
The hearing was a culmination of a years-long effort to find the origins of COVID, identify missteps during the response to the pandemic and get closure on the policies that restricted normal American life at the time.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is sworn-in before testifying before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic
But answers to those questions were hard to come by in the 3.5 hour hearing before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Fauci, in a dark suit and tie, largely kept his composure as he fielded questions about his role as National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director. He was scrutinized over whether his agency was involved in risky gain-of-function research, his connection to colleagues’ misconduct and his role in crafting COVID policies.
Lawmakers yelled at each other and Dr. Fauci and tempers flared as Congress revisited one of the darker periods in recent memory.
DailyMail.com runs down the most stand out moments of Monday’s hearing:
The hearing did not uncover the definitive origin of the COVID pandemic.
Neither has the committee been able to approximately define, beyond a shadow of a doubt, where the disease came from.
But based on reports from intelligence agencies, including the FBI, it must likely originated from a leak in a Wuhan, China, lab.
Fauci did concede that the illness could be manmade and may have come from a laboratory.
‘I keep an open mind as to what the origin is,’ he said.
Fauci confirmed during Monday’s hearing that the lab leak theory – the idea that COVID began at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) – is a real ‘possibility.’
His admission that COVID may have began at the WIV comes four years after he backed the publication of a paper which threw cold water on the lab leak theory called the ‘Proximal Origin’ paper.
And lawmakers had questions about that document’s finding that the likely origin of COVID came from an animal reservoir, such as bats from a Wuhan wet market or even the strange species pangolin – which was also thought to be the birthplace of the disease.
The members wanted to know if Fauci had a hand in crafting that paper’s findings.
He said that he did not – confirming during his testimony that he did not edit or contribute to the paper – though he did review it around the time of its publication.
Fauci also testified that when he first heard other scientists express concern over the virus possibly being manipulated in January of 2020, he urged them to investigate and give their findings to the FBI.
Still, in a February 9 2020 interview with Speaker Newt Gingrich, the former lawmaker asked Fauci to weigh in on ‘a biological warfare center in Wuhan and [whether] the coronavirus escaped from that.’
Fauci poured cold water on the theory that COVID could have escaped from a lab, calling it a ‘conspiracy theory’ three times in one sentence.
‘I’ve heard these conspiracy theories, and like all conspiracy theories, Newt, they’re just conspiracy theories.’
Fauci told the room that he believes COVID could have come from a lab
Fauci says ‘no science’ behind six-foot social distancing rule
The former NIAID director said he had nothing to do with the six-foot social distancing rule suggested at the outbreak of COVID in 2020.
Previously, Fauci testified before the body behind closed doors that he was not sure where the six-foot social distancing rules came from, telling committee lawyers that rule ‘sort of just appeared.’
‘You know, I don’t recall. It sort of just appeared,’ Fauci told the committee when pressed on how the rule came about during a closed-door January interview.
The transcripts of those interviews were just released last week ahead of Monday’s hearing.
In January Fauci said he ‘was not aware of studies’ that supported the social distancing, conceding that such studies ‘would be very difficult’ to do.
During Monday’s hearing Fauci, cleaned up his past remarks.
He confirmed to Congress that the six-foot guidance came from the CDC – and that despite their guidance not being based on established science, it was implemented.
‘My saying there was no science behind it, means there was no clinical trial that proved that,’ he clarified at the hearing.
‘I don’t recall,’ Dr. Anthony Fauci told the committee when pressed on where the six foot social distancing rule came from, saying ‘It sort of just appeared,’ according to his January testimony
Admitted that masking kids didn’t help prevent covid spread
Fauci also told the committee in January that he didn’t remember reading anything to support that masking kids would prevent COVID.
‘Do you recall reviewing any studies or data supporting masking for children?’ he was asked at the time.
‘I might have,’ he responded before adding ‘but I don’t recall specifically that I did.’
Fauci cleaned up his past remarks on masks on Monday.
‘There was no study that did masks on kids before,’ he testified.
He said that ‘you couldn’t do the study,’ because ‘you had to respond to an epidemic that was killing 4,000 – 5,000 Americans per day.’
The former NIAID director insinuated there was no time to do a study on mask effectiveness for children amid the outbreak, and therefore rules were adopted to cover kids’ faces – in many places for years.
When pressed on the forced masking of kids, Fauci could not recall if he read anything to support the fact it would prevent illness, according to January testimony
On Monday, however, Fauci did admit that there have been studies which have documented the ‘negative’ impacts that mask wearing in schools had on kids.
Both the social distancing guidance and mask wearing mandates would last for years and dramatically impact American life and culture.
Kids’ learning loss and social setbacks have been well documented, with one National Institute of Health (NIH) study calling the impact of mask use on students’ literacy and learning ‘very negative.’
And the impacts from social distancing caused ‘depression, generalized anxiety, acute stress, and intrusive thoughts,’ another NIH study found.
The former White House Coronavirus Taskforce member Fauci also sought to separate himself from his former defamed senior advisor Dr. David Morens.
Morens, who testified before the committee on May 22, admitted to deleting files and using his personal email to avoid Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests – much to the chagrin of the lawmakers on the panel.
Emails subpoenaed by the committee revealed that Morens worked to help coronavirus researcher Dr. Peter Daszak with public relations issues and even restore his grant funding from NIAID once it was pulled.
The reason it was pulled is because Daszak’s nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance was conducting coronavirus research a the WIV at the time of the outbreak, and that project was found to be in violation of NIAID’s grant agreement.
Morens, who testified that Daszak was his ‘best friend,’ then edited press releases for EcoHealth and sent correspondence to Daszak reassuring him that he and other NIAID officials would work to protect the researcher.
Fauci’s former top aide, Dr. David Morens, speaks during a House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing on Capitol Hill on May 22
At one point Morens even asked Daszak for a ‘kickback’ from the millions of dollars in grant funding the researcher received from the agency the former Fauci aide worked for.
Morens even suggested to Daszak he had a ‘secret back channel’ to tell sensitive things to Fauci, suggesting the clandestine line of communication would be free from the prying eyes of the public and journalist – which Morens disliked.
In one email Morens suggested he could send NIAID-related matters to Fauci using both of their personal email accounts.
Denied using his personal email for ‘official business’
But Fauci denied using personal his personal email for ‘official business,’ before adding the caveat, ‘to the best of my knowledge.’
‘I knew nothing of Dr. Morens’s actions regarding EcoHealth,’ Fauci said resolutely during Monday’s hearing.
He also said that Morens ‘definitely’ had a conflict of interest with his work with Daszak.
Fauci added Morens’s actions were ‘inappropriate’ and violated federal law.
Marjorie Taylor Greene accused Fauci of ‘lying’ and says he ‘belongs in prison’
The hearing roared to life as firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene , R-Ga., told Fauci to his face that she believes he is lying and ‘belongs in prison.’
‘We should be recommending you to be prosecuted … for crimes against humanity,’ the Georgia Republican said.
She also claimed that his ‘repulsive, evil science,’ led to school children having to endure class with masks, causing detrimental impacts on the kids.
Freshman Democrat Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., slammed Greene for her ‘ridiculous’ attacks on Fauci.
He said this has been the most unruly conference in his 1.5 years in Congress.
The Georgia Republican then showed Fauci a picture of him maskless during COVID at a baseball game.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, holds up an image of Dr. Anthony Fauci featured in a DailyMail.com article during her spat with the doctor
‘Do you think that’s appropriate…Mr. Fauci, because you’re not a doctor in my few minutes…that man does not deserve to have a license. As a matter of a fact it should be revoked and he belongs in prison,’ she said.
Democrats clapped backed at MTG creating chaotic moment
Greene’s outburst earned her the scorn of Democrats and briefly the committee chair Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, who raised his voice to demand she quiet down.
Shortly after the chairman wrangled the lawmakers back to speaking in level tones, a woman in the audience wearing a white dress began yelling at Dr. Fauci.
Audience member yells at Fauci and was removed
She was told by Capitol Police that if she did not leave she would be arrested.
The woman gathered her bag, a coffee and made for the door.
As she was leaving, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., ripped the woman, telling her to get her Starbucks and go.
Dr. Fauci displayed some emotion when asked how his role during the pandemic impacted his family, who received death threats because of their father’s job
Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., asked Fauci about the personal toll his role on the White House Coronavirus Taskforce cost him.
Fauci tears up as he recounts death threats
‘Myself, my three daughters, they have had credible death threats, leading to the arrests of different individuals,’ he said.
‘Credible death threats meaning someone who clearly was on their way to killing.’
‘It’s very troublesome to me,’ he continued. ‘It is even more troublesome because they involve my wife.’
Fauci said such threats have require his family to have ‘Protective Services essentially all the time.’
