Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told the U.S. Senate on Wednesday that they were not consulted by the Biden administration about shutting down the Trump administration’s investigation into the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
CNN reported on Tuesday that the investigation, which was run out of the State Department, was shut down because the Biden administration claimed that it was concerned about the quality of work and evidence that was produced.
Fauci and Collins had the following interaction with Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA):
KENNEDY: Why did you guys spike … the prior administration’s investigation into the origins of the coronavirus and whether it could have come out of the Wuhan lab?
FAUCI: Sir, I, I, we did not spike anything in the prior administration. I’m not sure what you mean by ‘spike,’ but we have no influence–
KENNEDY: The State Department spiked the prior administration’s study.
FAUCI: But that has nothing to do with the National Institutes of Health.
KENNEDY: So they didn’t consult with y’all?
FAUCI: They did not.
KENNEDY: Did they consult with you, Dr. Collins?
COLLINS: I read about it in the press this morning.
KENNEDY: Doc, they just spiked it without talking to their experts? [Pause] You don’t want to answer that one, do you?
WATCH:
NIH directors on the Trump admin’s probe into Covid’s origins being spiked: We learned about it in the press pic.twitter.com/snjE7cmKsd
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 26, 2021
At a different point in the hearing, Kennedy pressed Fauci about the funding that the NIH doles out to grantees. Fauci responded by praising Chinese scientists, claiming that they are trustworthy.
KENNEDY: Dr. Fauci, I believe you have testified that you didn’t give any money to the Wuhan lab to conduct gain-of-function research — is that right?
FAUCI: That is correct.
KENNEDY: How do you know they didn’t lie to you?
FAUCI: Excuse me, sir?
KENNEDY: How do you know they didn’t lie to you, and use the money for gain-of-function research anyway?
FAUCI: Well, we’ve seen the results of the experiments that were done and that were published, and that the viruses that they studied are on public databases now. So none of that was gain-of-function. So–
KENNEDY: How do you know they didn’t do the research and not put it on their website?
FAUCI: There’s no way of guaranteeing that. But in our experience with grantees, including Chinese grantees, which we’ve had interactions with for a very long period of time, they’re very competent, trustworthy scientists. I’m not talking about anything else in China, I’m talking about the scientists, that you would expect that they would abide by the conditions of the grant, which they’ve done for the years that we’ve had interaction.
KENNEDY: So you don’t think the Chinese would lie to you?
FAUCI: When you say the Chinese, the Chinese are a rather broad group. I know the scientists that we’ve dealt with have been trustworthy.
KENNEDY: You think all the scientists have told the truth in terms of the origin of the Wuhan virus and not been influenced by the Communist Party of China, do you?
FAUCI: I don’t have enough insight into the Communist Party in China to know the interactions between them and the scientists, sir.
WATCH:
Fauci now admits that "there's no way of guaranteeing" American taxpayer money he routed to the Wuhan virology lab didn't fund "gain-of-function" research pic.twitter.com/fNsGXWbH79
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 26, 2021