Testimony of Anthony Fauci — Senate HSGAC Hearing (Rand Paul), 29 July 2026
YouTube video by News livestream (YouTube kT5xuodO6BY) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT5xuodO6BY). Whisper (large-v3) ASR of a full news-channel livestream of the 29 July 2026 Senate HSGAC hearing 'Testimony of Anthony Fauci' (Chairman Rand Paul). At this hearing Fauci repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right and declined to answer questions. This is an uncertified auto-transcript pending the official GPO/committee transcript; the verbatim decline-to-answer repetitions are the actual record, not transcription errors.

The committee will now come to order. One million Americans died from COVID-19. Some estimate as many as 15 million people died worldwide from COVID-19. Publicly, Anthony Fauci promoted the theory that the virus arose naturally, while privately he was well aware of a mountain of evidence suggesting the virus originated in the lab. The American people deserve answers. The American people deserve to know why dangerous research was funded by NIAID in a totalitarian country, in a lab that lacked acceptable safety standards. The decision to fund dangerous gain of function research in Wuhan, China, will likely go down in history as perhaps one of the worst public health decisions. Frankly, the American people deserve an apology. I hope today Dr. Fauci will come clean, admit it was a mistake to fund dangerous research in China, admit it was a mistake to fund dangerous research in China, and admit it was a mistake to fund dangerous research in China, and admit that the risk of this dangerous research exceeded any possible benefits. Ask forgiveness and pledge to help our government devise safeguards so a man-made epidemic never happens again. Instead of an apology, you have for years avoided responsibility. Regarding the lockdowns, you argue that you did not personally issue every lockdown order, close every school, or impose every mandate. But officials across the country invoked your authority to justify these decisions. And you presented your recommendations not as judgments open to debate, but as dictates of science itself. Your own words demonstrate that you understood the influence you exercised. On March 14, 2020, you wrote that the task force recommendations were driven by me, yourself, Deb, and CDC. The next day you wrote that you had convinced Mayor Bill de Blasio to close the New York City schools, so you were involved. The next day you wrote that you had convinced Mayor Bill de Blasio to close the New York City schools, so you were involved. That same night, Governor Gavin Newsom's chief of staff told you that the governor had decided to close California schools, bars, and restaurants after watching you on television. Presidents, governors, mayors, school boards, corporations, and Congress all bear responsibility for the decisions they made. The COVID lockdown, however, could never have been inflicted without you aiding and abetting the crime. Children lost years of education. Small businesses built over a lifetime disappeared. Patients delayed cancer screenings and other medical care. Families were separated from dying relatives. Workers were ordered to accept a medical procedure or lose their jobs. Worship assembly, employment, education, and travel were restricted in the name of science. While you did not impose every restriction, you used your public authority to justify them. While you concluded publicly that COVID occurred naturally, your private record tells a different story. While you concluded publicly that COVID occurred naturally, your private record tells a different story. While you concluded publicly that COVID occurred naturally, your private record tells a different story. While you concluded publicly that COVID occurred naturally, your private record tells a different story. In early 2020, your hand-picked virologist warned that the virus appeared to have been manipulated in the lab. In early 2020, your hand-picked virologist warned that the virus appeared to have been manipulated in the lab. In early 2020, your hand-picked virologist warned that the virus appeared to have been manipulated in the lab. In early 2020, your hand-picked virologist warned that the virus appeared to have been manipulated in the lab. In early 2020, your hand-picked virologist warned that the virus appeared to have been manipulated in the lab. In early 2020, your hand-picked virologist warned that the virus appeared to have been manipulated in the lab. In early 2020, your hand-picked virologist warned that the virus appeared to have been manipulated in the lab. concerning the origin of the virus, all but two of the participants believed deliberate insertion was possible. Your concern was not merely theoretical. That same week, you led an urgent effort to determine whether your own agency had funded the research related to these experiments that were now under suspicion. Hours later, your assistant reported that the Wuhan experiments had indeed been reviewed and approved by the NIH. Those were not the actions of officials who believed that a research related to origin was an absurd conspiracy theory. They were the actions of officials urgently trying to determine whether their agency funding was connected to the research under discussion, connected to the pandemic. You could not hide that your agency had funded the Wuhan research or your long history of defending gain-of-function research. The only alternative left was to argue that COVID-19 did not originate from the Wuhan lab. You were not a detached observer. You had an institutional interest in the public believing that federally funded research had nothing to do with the pandemic. It was a conflict of interest from the very beginning. The authors of the proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 privately had serious doubts about a natural origin. Within days, though, they flipped and they all wrote in proximal origin that the virus was almost certainly not a laboratory. The authors of the proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 privately had serious doubts about a natural laboratory construct. That paper was then used by the government and the media and you to discredit Americans who were asking the same questions that you and the authors were asking yourselves privately. You even cited proximal origin from the White House podium. You held it out as evidence that the virus could not have been engineered, but you didn't disclose your role in the discussions that preceded the writing of the paper. You did not disclose the author's original concerns. You did not reveal that you had been part of the paper, that you had read and offered editorial comments on the paper before it was published, before you began using it as evidence that it couldn't have originated in the lab. You did not disclose that you had immediately investigated yourself whether NIAID funding might be connected to the research. You did not tell the American people the full story. Duly released private messages indicate that the doubts with the authors and others were not directly connected to the research. You did not tell the American people the full story. You did not tell the American people the full story. You did not say publicly that you had written a report right on the paper talked at his office, that the lecturers didn't disappear after the publication. So while this was being waved at the White House to show that it couldn't come from the lab, the authors were still privately continuing to assign a meaningful probability to a laboratory origin, one thing in public and another in private. You did not disclose prés полаг badmez como evalúa el video en la E Даile, réduciendo Wisconsin throughNucleosis. The less intense changes in quality and efficiency, the more четыplo Gold Dimensions information affects the application of Niaidos. It is important to avoid the ordeal of intentions of those who change authors, rather than evaluating foci transitioning from the existing data. Ultimately, for liberalism, the sibling can actually go to the lab. The pattern is straightforward. Privately, there was alarm, then an immediate inquiry to see if NIAID's possible exposure to funding, then a rapid public declaration of certainty, continued private doubt, and then years of resistance to disclosure. The question is why? The only logical answer is that your primary concern was avoiding culpability. Your primary concern was hiding the fact that you had approved the funding for this dangerous research. Your support of gain-of-function research is extensive and longstanding. In 2011, your agency funded Ron Fouchier's laboratory when it mutated the avian flu until it could spread through the air between mammals. This was the tipping point. This is when others became worried. You funded this. You advocated for this. The federal government's own biosecurity board, though, recommended withholding the details of these experiments because of this. This is the danger the research posed. People were concerned that publishing it was publishing a road map to creating bioweapons around the world. But you sided with the gain-of-function scientist, Fouchier, and argued that the benefits of publishing the research far outweighed the risks. You defended this avian flu transmissibility experiment as critical research. You wrote that even if a scientist became infected and triggered a pandemic, the benefits of the research have been zeroed out. The benefits of the research have been zeroed out. benefits of the gain-of-function experiments outweighed the risk. In 2014, your agency, NIAID, began funding the Wuhan bat coronavirus work. In 2015, Ralph Baric and the Chinese scientist Shi Zhengli published NIAID-supported research combining a bat coronavirus spike protein with a SARS backbone. The resulting virus could infect human airway cells. It's a novel virus that now can infect human cells. It gained transmissibility. It gained function. In 2018, the same group of scientists, EcoHealth, Baric, Shi, and their collaborators submitted the Diffuse proposal, which involved the insertion of a furin cleavage site into the coronavirus. DARPA rejected it as too dangerous. When COVID was sequenced, though, early on in January of 2020, within days, scientists discovered that, lo and behold, it had a novel furin cleavage site just as had been proposed in the Diffuse project. This was either an extraordinary coincidence or a smoking gun, evidence that the Chinese had created COVID-19. It made the laboratory origin question more legitimate, and it made your categorical public denials indefensible. On May 11, 2021, you told the Senate, We were then told that only the government's narrowest regulation of definition counted here, that you could define gain-of-function in one way in which this wasn't gain-of-function, in which all of the common sense of the world would be thrown out, all of the ideas that the mice were dying and the virus was more transmissible didn't matter because you had a technical definition that allowed you to fund it. But the real question is, was it dangerous? Was it a wise decision to fund this? And you haven't deviated from that. You've never admitted that it could have been a mistake funding this research in China. The American people weren't asking for a semantics debate over what is gain-of-function. They were asking, does common sense say this research was dangerous in Wuhan? They wanted to know whether there are money-funded experiments in Wuhan that made bat coronaviruses better able to infect humans. The answer is yes. They wanted to know whether NIAID adequately supervised their work. The answer is no. When you defended this research, you described its benefits in the broadest terms, but when Congress demanded accountability, you hid behind the narrowest possible definition. You can't have it both ways. Your conduct concerning federal records raises further questions. It is a crime to destroy federal records. Yet our investigation reveals your assistant diligently reported that she deleted tons of emails. In 2024, you testified that you did not delete federal records. Who's telling the truth? You or your assistant? The committee has obtained repeated instructions from you telling federal officials to delete communications. On February 2nd, 2020. One day after. Your origins call, you told Francis Collins, please delete this email after you read it. The committee asked for your voluntary cooperation to come today. Your appearance had to be compelled by subpoena. You're here today under duress. You were here today because of the court ordering it. President Biden issued you a sweeping pardon extending back to 2014. The same pardon he gave to his son Hunter. A pardon may protect a person from criminal prosecution. A letter from their superiors. A letter from their superiors. Your past has been put to the press. You're here today because of the public's protection. Your past is a test of your name, your history and your loyalty. You need to be tried. There's no guarantee that your history will get edited and you won't rewrite history. It does not erase documents. It does not convert a misleading statement into a truthful one. It does not prevent Congress from establishing what happened. There will be another pandemic. government officials cannot be questioned because questioning them would undermine public trust. They have it backwards. It is secrecy that destroys trust. It is arrogance that destroys trust. It is censorship that destroys trust, and it is the refusal to admit error that destroys trust. That loss of trust may be your most damaging legacy. Trust can't be ordered. It has to be earned. No scientist is above scrutiny. No government official is beyond accountability, and no public servant has the right to treat the suffering of millions of Americans as a footnote to his preferred version of history. I now recognize Senator Peters for his opening remarks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has a long and a very proud history of conducting serious oversight on behalf of the American people. When this committee has been at its best, Democrats and Republicans have worked together to investigate complicated issues, to follow the facts wherever they may lead, and produce recommendations that actually strengthen our nation's security and improve government functions. That bipartisan tradition has produced meaningful work following Hurricane Katrina. The January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, failures at the Secret Service, and countless other matters. Unfortunately, today's hearing is the latest step in the Chairman's sharp departure from that long tradition. This hearing appears to be a culmination of months of biased and selected efforts by the majority under the guise of a committee investigation to basically legitimize a role of security in the U.S. economy. Senate Chairman Hathaway has been on the call for a number of days in the EMB assing the chairman'sword to be raised in a hastily averaged blast over the chairman's conclusion that was reached years ago. In 2021, the Chairman has called for today's witness to be fired, to be arrested, accused him of leading cover ups and conspiracies. He has even featured the witness prominently in fundraising emails and on the cover of his book. He has also called for the cancellation of the witness's security detail despite the fact the witness and his family have received suing. numerous credible death threats. When I served as chairman, Senator Paul and I launched a bipartisan biosecurity investigation that included oversight of risky research and the origins of COVID-19. Because we agreed that the committee's work would be stronger if we did it in a bipartisan manner and just followed the facts. That was and continues to be an area of legitimate and certainly needed oversight. As chairman, Senator Paul has taken the opposite approach. He has abandoned longstanding practice by blocking minority participation in committee oversight actions and has chosen to selectively release committee records that the minority has never had any access to in order to support his pre-drawn conclusions. The chairman has repeatedly excluded committee's minority and withheld documents and evidence from members that are entitled to receive them. Disregarding longstanding Senate rules and committee precedent that have preserved the credibility of our oversight in this committee for decades. I have raised these concerns directly with the chairman. Because it's not just what we investigate that matters. But how we conduct that investigation. That also matters. One-sided investigations designed to validate and control the truth of the public view of the committee. And the second is that the chairman's pre-determined conclusions do not serve the American people. Who sent us to actually undercover the truth and to solve problems. I wrote to the chairman requesting that he adhere to committee rules. But instead of addressing concerns that I raised, he removed part of the committee's website from the public view. This move not only prevented the public from being able to view those questions about the desire for transparency and legitimate oversight of this matter. But what makes today's hearing particularly disappointing is not simply the chairman's actions. But what we could be using this committee's true and time oversight responsibilities to accomplish. This committee has not held its annual threats hearing at all in this Congress. We have not held a budget hearing for the Department of Homeland Security. There are important hearings that we would have the opportunity to discuss as to how to strengthen our Homeland Security across the board. No hearings on those topics. Instead of focusing on the national security challenges that we are facing in our country right now, today's hearing looks backwards. Revisiting questions this committee has already examined, including through bipartisan work that Senator Paul and I conducted together when I served as chairman of this committee. But rather than building on that work to strengthen our preparedness against future disasters, we are instead relitigating the past. COVID-19 exposed serious deficiencies in our nation's public health infrastructure. We know that. More than one million Americans lost their lives. And this committee should absolutely continue to examine how we can better prepare our nation against future biological threats. Those are the kinds of forward-looking, life-saving questions that will help our nation be better prepared to protect the health and the safety of Americans when the next emergency occurs. Unfortunately, at this precise moment, we should be strengthening our capabilities. The Trump administration seems to be doing everything in their power to actually weaken our capabilities. The administration has hollowed out the public health workforce. They have fired. Pushed out. And cut funding for public health personnel. Shrinking the CDC workforce by a quarter. Thousands of experienced scientists have left government service. And with them has gone critical institutional knowledge that cannot be easily replaced. Certainly not quickly replaced. The administration, thanks to political operatives like Russell Vogt, has slashed or illegally withheld funding for life-saving medicines and cutting-edge technologies. That let us rapidly develop them during an emergency. Mr. Vogt is now further politicizing the federal grant-making process, proposing to subject all federal grants, including those for disaster relief, housing development, and cancer research, to the whims of political appointees, not non-partisan experts. All of this has left the American people more vulnerable to infectious disease threats. And we are already tragically sick. We are seeing the consequences. Staffing and funding cuts have slowed the federal, state, and local response to ongoing outbreak of a food-borne parasite, which has sickened thousands in my home state of Michigan, as well as across the country. At the same time, the administration cuts to global health programs and international partnerships have greatly reduced our ability to contain dangerous diseases like Ebola before they spread to our shores. We should be examining whether our federal health agencies are able to respond to these threats. Whether our federal health agencies have the personnel and the resources they need to effectively prevent, detect, and respond to these threats. We should be asking how to strengthen our biodefense efforts to deter our adversaries and prevent biological attacks against our country, and how our government can better coordinate and communicate during public health emergencies. These are the kinds of forward-looking matters that are worthy of the committee's time. Instead, we are here continuing the chairman's year-long focus on one individual. History tells us, unfortunately, another pandemic is all but inevitable. The question is whether Congress and this committee will work to better prepare our country for it or continue looking backward while our public health infrastructure crumbles around us. That is the hearing that we should be having today. Unfortunately, I fear the intent of this hearing is only meant to further a purely partisan agenda and will not, it will not make Americans safer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The accusation that the committee has denied access to the minority to records is categorically false. This is the most transparent investigation in the history of Congress. We actually created a website and we put all of the information on the website. It continues to operate. The reason it hasn't been accessed is no Democrat ever signed up for it. Not one Democrat. We told them the access. They never asked for the access code. They haven't been on the website because they have not cared about the investigation. It's a practice of this committee to swear in the witness. Dr. Fauci, please stand and raise your right hand. Do you swear that the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? So help you God. Dr. Anthony Fauci, you are recognized for five minutes for your opening statement. Thank you, Member Peters, members of the committee. I served at the NIH for over 54 years, 38 of those as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Over that period, I proved that I believe in and respect the value of legitimate congressional oversight. In fact, I testified before and or briefed Senate and House committees well over 200 times over those 38 years. During and after the COVID pandemic, I have appeared multiple times for hearings in the Senate and the House, usually under oath, and sat for several days long. I have also been among transcribed sworn interviews answering questions about the very issues that are now the subject of this hearing. However, given Senator Paul's obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently his publicly releasing my unredacted, unconfirmed, and unresolved personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, the only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, quote, behind bars, unquote. Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion. Therefore, although it pains me to do so because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with the government, I am not going to be able to do that. I am not going to be able to do that. I am not going to be able to do that. I am not going to be able to do that. I am not going to be able to do that. I am not going to be able to do that. I am not going to be able to do that. I am not going to be able to do that. I am not going to be able to do that. I am not going to be able to do that. I am not going to be able to do that. Under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions. Thank you. We will now begin a round of questioning. Dr. Fauci, your testimony today is compelled by a lawful subpoena. As you know, it's a crime under 18 U.S.C. Section 1001 to knowingly make a material false statement to Congress. with a penalty up to five years of imprisonment understanding that you are under oath the american people would like to understand your reasoning your rationale for why you chose to fund the research in wuhan there have been um you know intelligence agencies the cia the fbi the doe have all come to the conclusion that more likely than not the virus came from the lab in wuhan and we'd like to know what was the rationale what was the discussion how you know what went behind the decision to fund the research uh in wuhan um how did you come to the conclusion that a totalitarian country would be capable of doing this in a bsl2 lab a lab that lacked the security what was the reasoning and are you are you sorry basically for making the decision would you you know like given a another chance say well gosh circumstances now as i know it maybe it wasn't a wise thing can you explain to the committee why you chose to fund this dangerous research in china on the advice of counsel i respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment of the constitution in the red folder on your table is a copy of section 192 of title ii of the u.s code your council has been provided a copy as well that's a copy of the u.s code that section makes it a crime for a witness appearing under subpoena to refuse to answer any questions pertinent to the question under inquiry do you have that in front of you on the advice of counsel i respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment of the constitution let the record record that the witness has refused to answer whether there's a folder in front of him based on his fifth amendment right it is true that you're appearing under direction of our office and i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry to provide testimony on matters under consideration by the committee including the origins of covet 19 risky life sciences research and your tenure as a federal government employee additionally you've been provided a full and unconditional pardon dated january 19th 2025 for any offenses against the united states which may have been committed or taken part from january 1st 2014 through the date of the pardon for a 10-year period arising from or in any manner related to your service as director of the national institute for allergy and infectious diseases as a member of the white house coronavirus task force or the white house covet 19 response team or as chief medical advisor to the president have you refused this pardon or do you have any reason to believe this full and unconditional pardon this grant of immunity would somehow require you to plead the fifth amendment on the advice of council i respectfully the client and the client and the client and the client and the client and the client to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment of the constitution based on the facts presented i'm going to direct you to answer the questions the committee has issued a valid subpoena they have requested your presence here the questions are very pertinent to your decision making as head of niaid as well as uh as a chief advisor to the president do you still refuse to answer the questions on the advice of council i respectfully decline to answer based upon based upon my rights under the fifth amendment of the constitution dr falchi were you ever made aware of gain of function research on monkey pox being conducted at the national biodefense analysis and countermeasure center and back at fort diedrich on the advice of council i respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment of the constitution dr falchi hours on the most important committee in this senate debate we back to doctor turkitt Dr. Fauci, did the CIA ever transfer funds to NIH under an inter-agency agreement? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. Dr. Fauci, did the NIH ever conduct research for or in coordination with any element of the intelligence community, CIA, ODNI? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. The reason why these questions are important is, you know, President Trump has done a ban, and we're glad that he did a ban on gain-of-function research. So we're better off than we were when we had an advocate serving as head of NIAID, an advocate for gain-of-function research. There is still, though, a question, though, whether or not the intelligence community is adhering to the law. In that order, there's a question of whether or not gain-of-function research is still ongoing. And these are important questions the American people deserve to know. Dr. Fauci, have you been read into any classified Department of Homeland Security program, any prospective special access program concerning gain-of-function research? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. When we look at the research in China, the gain-of-function research that you've denied was gain-of-function. One of the things that startled the scientists when they saw COVID in the first couple of weeks was when they looked at the sequence of it, they said, oh, my God, there's a furin cleavage site in it. And in this particular family of coronaviruses, the sarvicoviruses, they'd never seen this before. They were also startled to look at it and see how it was coded for, what the codons were, and to discover that the codons used, out of 36 different possibilities, turned out to be the one that was commonly used in gene manipulation by scientists. Dr. Fauci, were the scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology capable of inserting a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. So one of the experiments that was pretty common was they would take the backbone of a SARS virus, and this would be a SARS virus that the backbone itself wasn't that dangerous, but then they would dig through guano, 300 feet underground, back guano. They'd find other viruses, unknown viruses. They'd take the S protein off of an unknown virus and stick it on a backbone. And then they would infect mice that have humanized cells. And they were trying to discover if they could create a virus that infects humans. Now, many people would say, well, gosh, that doesn't sound like a really good idea to create viruses. That don't exist in nature to see if they'll infect human cells. What if one escaped? What if you keep infecting this and do serial passage? You actually adapt the virus to be infectious to humans. So the question is, is whether or not Dr. Fauci, the Wuhan Institute of Virology was combining an S protein with one virus with the backbone of others. And could this lead to a virus? Maybe it wasn't even predicted, but could it lead to viruses that gained in function? And then could lead to a pandemic? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. One of the arguments that you and others have made against this virus coming from the lab is it couldn't have come from the viruses that have been published. And nobody's really arguing that. I think from the very beginning, people acknowledged that the viruses that have been published are too far evolutionarily distant from. A virus that could have become COVID-19. But what has never been acknowledged by the side who tries to call the other side of conspiracy theory, which is really something you don't usually see in a scientific debate. This is the first time I've ever seen an article printed in Lancet by your friends who called this a conspiracy theory. You know, these are the kind of things you see as a screed on a political, you know, website. You don't really see this in science, but when they they released this as being a conspiracy theory. You know, we're wondering that when you do this, when you combine these viruses and are able to grow them in humanized cells, whether or not this kind of risky research, whether or not, whether you call it gain of function or not, whether you use the definition of gain of function, whether this kind of research should have had more scrutiny. I think in your house testimony, you testified that you never traveled to China and that you were unaware that anybody in NIH ever examined. The labs that you trusted the Chinese scientists. I think you've said that even recently that with your discretion, you trusted the Chinese scientists. The problem is, is that even in our country, we trust our scientists. They're good. American scientists probably doing the right thing for America. But at the same time, we oversight to make sure it's not dangerous research. But we also investigate the lab. I believe Fort Detrick was one of our main labs was closed down in the last year or two because of, you know, Research Institute. A research incident that was dangerous with dangerous pathogens. And so the American people would want to know how could you approve this dangerous research in China? Say that you trusted the Chinese scientists. And then in the end, you had to admit that you'd never been there. None of your inspectors had ever been there. Dr. Fauci, at any of the labs where this dangerous research was occurring, were any American lab oversight or lab investigators today? Ever? Or appear in these labs to make sure that they were safe labs? On the advice of Council, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. So one of the main theories for those who have looked at this being created in the lab was the idea that could have come from a virus not previously published. Dr. Fauci, are you aware that Dr. Shi, who worked for the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was said to, and I think in her own words, to have over 100 viruses that had not been previously published that could have been close enough relative to create COVID-19. Are you aware of that? On the advice of Council, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Under your testimony previously when you denied ever having funded gain of function in China, it was so adamant as to be striking to leave no room for any interpretation of what is or isn't the virus. Dr. Fauci, I'm sorry. Dr. Shi, are you aware of that? On the advice of Council, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. But there's another important question. Did you fund gain of function research in other biolabs around the world? On the advice of Council, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. The one research project that we do know you did fund is the one that Ron Fucchi did. It's important to talk about because this sort of was the beginning of the debate over gain of function. This wasn't just me. I wasn't even aware of the debate 10 years ago. 10 years ago, this was other scientists, over 200 scientists at the Cambridge Working Group signed a protest because they didn't think you should fund the research and they didn't think it should even be published because it was sort of a roadmap as to how to make a bioweapon. So what they did was the avian flu, and this is important. It may be the most important question we get to here today. The avian flu has about 50% mortality for humans. The good news, though, about animal viruses is they don't infect humans very well. It will infect humans, but doesn't go human to human very well. Ron Fouchier, with the money that you provided to him, did an experiment where he caused purposeful mutations to create a new virus, an avian flu that didn't just infect birds well, but actually infected mammals well, went ferret to ferret in an aerosolized manner. People saw this and were aghast at the decision-making process that you decided to fund this. But this is when, you know, the Department of Health and Human Services debate came about, and you wrote in support of this in the Washington Post, and you said, even if a scientist is bitten, even if a pandemic should occur, the knowledge is worth the risks. Do you still stand by that? Would you like to qualify at all whether or not the knowledge of gain-of-function is worth the risks, particularly in this case, since we now know 15 million people died worldwide? Many people believe this came from the lab. Do you think that the risks really are worth the benefits for gain-of-function research? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Yeah, all right. We're going to finish with this question, and it's based really on that statement, that general statement in your support for gain-of-function, the idea that the benefits outweigh the risks. So there are many other people who disagree, and they aren't politicians or not. I don't know what party they're in. David Relman is probably one of the most esteemed, and he, you know, I think he's one of the most esteemed, you know, he is a scientist at Stanford. He, I think, has classified clearance. He's been a consultant to our government probably for a decade or more. And he's written about this publicly. He says the opposite. He said that the risks of this research do not outweigh the benefits. He said the risks, we shouldn't do it. Richard Ebright, who's been involved in this debate for two decades, says the same thing. Does he really, we really shouldn't be doing this at all. There's a question. There's a quote also by the Kevin S. Felt quote. Is that at the very end? Kevin S. Felt, who's a CRISPR scientist at MIT, also wrote about this gain of function. I implore every scientist, funder, and nation working in the field, please stop. No more trying to discover or make pandemic-capable viruses. No more experiments likely to disseminate blue prints for plagues. Dr. Fauci, would you like to at least answer this one question for us today? And let us know whether or not you have changed your mind on whether or not the benefits of gain-of-function research outweigh the risks. On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment to the Constitution. The chairman has denied your assertion of privilege and directed you to answer, but you nonetheless refuse, and stay silent for two minutes. I masquerade as might be approved. No response is smoke-ifiers. If you're gonna show down a celebrecoming fire ngh next week, on privilege despite the existence of the pardon. The committee will have to consider after this hearing what appropriate action should be taken against you for the failure to testify after being directed to do so. It's against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress. There will be repercussions to your refusal to testify today. Senator Peters. You're not recognized. You're not recognized. If you are unruly you will be removed from the proceeding. You are not recognized and you you are not recognized sir. Sir, you are not recognized. You are not recognized. Security will hold off. But you will respect these proceedings. You were told not to sit at the table. You insist on sitting at the table, and we told you you would not be recognized you are not invited here for testimony. Sir, you are being disruptive. Would you behave this way? in a courtroom no because the judge would put you in jail i can't do that today but i can have you escorted from the premises so i would say sir sit quietly and don't say another word i said sit quietly you are not recognized another word and you're gone so mr chairman i'd like to hear uh what the the attorney has to say he is not recognized by the committee or the chair if he speaks again he will be removed from the room this testimony is from anthony fauci this is not a game with his lawyers he can advise his lawyers can give him advice he's got a half dozen here they're all allowed to talk to him yes all right but the attorneys are not recognized in fact the attorney was told not to sit at the table and he's not obeying that recommendation there's a row behind you sir that's where you were told to sit and you're not and now you're disrupting the proceedings and so look this is the way anthony fauci wants to be remembered for a lawyer not listening to the rules that's the way you want to be remembered and that's what you're going to do you are not recognized sir security please remove him from the room let the record state that dr fauci will still have the advice of the other half a dozen attorneys that he brought along today senator peters thank you mr chairman the uh the coved 19 pandemic is not the first or the last public health crisis to impact our nation in december 2020 2022 i released a report that identified significant failures in our federal government's preparedness and initial response to covid 19. this report contained 17 key findings it's a very large report which i have right here it contains 17 key findings and corresponding recommendations including the need to invest in sustainable domestic manufacturing capabilities for critical medical supplies build the infrastructure for the health care of our people and the health care of our people and the health care of our people and the health care of our people and the health care of our people needed to surge testing capacity for infectious diseases and robustly fund public health emergency preparedness and responses across all levels of government unfortunately multiple administrations including the current trump administration have failed to fund or to reform our health preparedness this is something that i would hope the committee in the future would investigate it needs to be taken a look at it also feels like a new public health threat is hitting us every month there's a foodborne parasite affecting thousands of people in michigan and across the country and our federal agencies still haven't fully pinned down the source of that outbreak measles cases in this country are the highest they've been in 35 years more children are getting sick and even hospitalized from this preventable disease over a thousand people have died from the ebola virus in africa and we don't know how widespread this crisis actually is we have a hunter virus scare on a cruise ship and though it hasn't made headlines in the way that the screw worm threatening our food security has i remain concerned about bird flu that is also spreading and could one day cause a pandemic this is also something this committee should be investigating and holding hearings on since january 2020 the trump administration has taken a number of actions to drastically weaken our ability to fight infectious diseases and biological threats that endanger americans these actions are both incomprehensible and are also inexcusable they include slashing funding for public health and infectious disease research canceling contracts for cutting-edge vaccine technology shutting agencies responsible for tackling infectious diseases around the world firing thousands of federal employees with keeping our communities and our medicines and our food supply safe and injecting political appointees in what should be non-political grant-making functions that is something this committee should be looking at i could go on i could go on on all the topics that we need to be looking at moving forward to protect this country we're not doing that in this committee that's what this committee was designed to do it's what it has done throughout history it has done it in a bipartisan way we should get back to that and think about the future of this country and keeping this country safe when a crisis like covet 19 strikes we have an obligation to examine what went right and what went wrong to provide accountability for the american people congress certainly has done that between the house and senate nearly 20 different committees 20 different committees including this committee as i mentioned have conducted oversight of the covet 19 pandemic conducting transcribed interviews holding dozens of hearings and released more than 10 cases today's exercise unfortunately is a stark departure from those largely bipartisan legitimate efforts the chairman has shut the minority out of participating equally in these efforts withheld information selectively released documents actions that completely undermine the credibility of this investigation i will enter a record without objection mr chairman a letter that i sent to you that detailed all of those areas that we have concerned with and where we were shut out without objection we'll provide a other details as well i think today's hearing unfortunately does real damage it's turning tempting to turn one person into the scapegoat for a crisis that hundreds of officials across both the trump and the biden administration were responsible for handling it does so in a way that people that are facing death threats this is only going to unfortunately deter other scientific experts from public service to understand that this is what they would have to go through as they provide their advice to us we're not going to make our nation safer and i hope that we can restore the by doing these kinds of activities and i hope that we can restore our legitimate bipartisan oversight that's going to help strengthen our public health and pandemic preparedness and other homeland priorities that's what this committee needs to focus on it hasn't the last year and a half let's hope it does in the future thank you mr chairman senator johnson thank you mr chairman uh dr fauci i hope the american people listened very carefully to chairman paul's opening statement i think it's a stunning indictment of the actions you've taken that have been so destructive to global health i certainly understand why you needed a pardon i certainly understand why on the advice of counsel you're not answering any questions because i think it'd be almost impossible for you to answer the questions truthfully without really demonstrating what you did your culpability self-incriminating we have all of us has prepared a lot i've been deluged with questions to ask dr anthony fauci that there are so many legitimate questions that deserve answers and now you're not willing to provide those answers so with with my limited time i'm going to talk about things that my investigation revealed that have not been adequately answered and quite honestly having been adequately covered by the legacy media i'll do i'll kind of combine the the questions into kind of one but you know i certainly let's let's put up the last uh covert chart uh i was warned pretty early on about the day i'm going to be on the dangers of the experimental gene therapy that you've called a vaccine, but it really falls under the definition of gene therapy. So I was going to ask you, I mean, were you carefully monitoring the safety surveillance systems like VAERS and V-SAFE that literally were deluged with complaints? Currently, worldwide, there have been almost 1.7 million adverse events reported to the VAERS system. Of those, over 39,000 were deaths. And of those deaths, 24% occur on the day of vaccination within one or two days. 24%, which, by the way, just happens to be the same percentage that a Rasmussen poll pointed out, the American public believe they, 24% of the American public believe they know somebody who died of the experimental gene therapy. So again, I was certainly interested in asking you whether or not you were following this as carefully as I was. It was not my responsibility to follow safety surveillance systems, but I did. And by the way, when I published, this is actual government information. When I published it and people had me on their shows, they would be censored by Facebook. They would be deplatformed. I think largely at the behest of the actions you took to make sure that disinformation wasn't spread. This wasn't disinformation. This was the truth. So I was going to ask you whether you knew Dr. Marks. I think you do know him. He's the head of CBER. He's the man who is in charge of approving vaccines and surveilling for the safety. My investigation shows that on March 1st of 2021, less than three months after the emergency use authorizations, he was warned by Dr. Anna Sharsman, data mining expert, that the algorithm they were using to analyze VAERS data was going to hide in mass safety systems. So I was a little confused at first. Because at the very beginning of the day, we had all these new data. Now we had this new algorithm that gathered and set up all these new safety signals. 26 days later, in three months consecutively after that, they did data runs with a new algorithm that unmasked those safety signals. They show dozens of safety signals including sudden cardiac death, cerebral artery occlusion, basal ganglia stroke, agonal rhythm, Bell's palsy, and pulmonary infarction. Your diaries now show that you actually suffered. Pulmonary infarction. in I think probably June 2021 I was just wondering I was just wondering whether ever went through your mind but maybe that injection all those boosters you took might have caused that you know in the question I was gonna and I'll ask this question were you ever made aware of the fact that Peter Marks was warned that the algorithm is gonna hide the safety signals and were you told that senior FDA officials were given dozens shown dozens of safety signals associated with the covert injection on the advice of counsel I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution next day I want to go through is in that same month of March 2021 an employee at NIH dr. Nath led a team of researchers who were diagnosing a patient who had been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the United States and the and treating individuals who'd never had COVID or severely injured by the genetic therapy injections dr. Nath told those individuals stay quiet you know we want to make sure that you know we get all gather all the information and then release it to doctors so they can treat people like yourself there was a concerted effort and I'll enter this in the record it appears inside NIH to quash dr. Nath's publishing publishing that study it finally was put on a pre-print server with telling no one and I think about May of 2022 I think what's noteworthy about this is dr. Nath told the injured participants that early treatment early intervention was crucial for them to be treated and yet within the NIH they were questioning what was dr. Nath doing they didn't want to publish that because I want to take time searching for it because publishing it would create vaccine hesitancy which is what we continue to hear time and time again is the reason they didn't promote you they lied about the safety signals they were seeing throughout the pandemic I always push early treatment you know we've got things in in here where you know you you were really concerned about remdesivir because it was it was untested but hydroxychloroquine yeah it was an approved drug you know maybe some safety issues but we had a great deal of experience with it all of a sudden you had the Surgisphere study those retracted within two weeks because it completely false totally blew up the use of hydroxychloroquine and then when it comes to ivermectin which by the way because I had those contact by so many people I referred them to doctors actually had the courage and compassion to treat vaccine injured individuals it works but I was going to ask you whether you involved in the FDA attack on ivermectin you had a interview on CNN on August 29th of 2021 where again I just don't want to take time to find the exact quote but you know so there's no evidence there's no evidence that ivermectin is helpful on that exact same day and I've got the studies right here there was a website it was tracking the random controlled studies they're here they are showing 60 70 percent efficacy of ivermectin the same thing you say there's no evidence there was all kinds of evidence loved ones had to go to hospitals had to sue hospitals just would you try it so I would want to know you know to what extent were you involved in sabotaging hydroxychloroquine ivermectin and and did you do that because you knew the only way you get an emergency use authorization for these drugs these experimental gene therapy was if there was no effective treatment you couldn't get the emergency use authorization so is that is that why you help sabotage these cheap generic drugs in favor of remdesivir which by the way nurses are you are the fact that nurses called it run death is near on the advice of a council I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment to the constitution but let me end on this note because this this just came to light you know we've got 11 million pages documents we also have other people who were in the room but now when you actually lied to you you lied to your you lied to your own diary on march 27 2020 you wrote in your diary to my surprise yesterday the POTUS sent a letter to governors to reopen county by county while monitoring the spread of virus in low-risk counties this was half-baked and never shown to Deb or I before it was sent out so we have evidence that in fact you know you were fully aware of it and certainly approved if not authored it so I just simply ask you means that is that true I mean did you literally lie to your own diary did did did you know of that letter sent out to governors about reopening county by county Mr. Chairman I'd ask you to ask the witness just answer that one simple question on the advice of council I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment to the constitution famous chairman Senator Hassan thank you Dr. Fauci I want to start by thanking you for more than 50 years of service to this country at the National Institutes of Health. How um something that is so solemn I think you must be very very fortunate that you have been put in the position that you are in today. And it must be enormously frustrating to know that this hearing is designed to entrap you It must be very frustrating for your attorneys to hear the chairs mischaracterization of the legal issues and posture that impact your decisions at the witness table today. things that are relevant right now to the people of the United States about the state of public health in this country. Since President Trump took office in 2025, more than 4,500 cases of measles have been reported. That is more cases in the year and a half since Donald Trump has been president than were reported from 2000 to 2024 combined. Children are dying because there has been increased vaccine hesitancy fueled by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and frankly, his entire administration. Thousands of people in the United States of America have been sickened by a foodborne parasite, and the outbreak is nowhere near under control as staffing at the FDA and other critical public health entities has been slashed by Russell Vogt and Elon Musk. Last year, the National Institutes of Health awarded 201 fewer grants compared to the previous years. 207, I am corrected. Compared to previous years. As those grants were either canceled or delays, especially at the beginning of the Trump administration, I can tell you, I can tell my colleagues what the impact was on people in New Hampshire, on scientists in New Hampshire, on clinical trials in New Hampshire where people's cancer treatment was interrupted because Elon Musk and Russell Vogt know better, they say, than the people at NIH about what to fund. And because they did some sort of word search, it seems, to some of the grants, and boy, oh boy, if you were studying rural health in New Hampshire and trying to understand how to better engage people who need health care in rural America, was off the table. America is losing researchers and scientists to other countries because researchers and scientists highly trained, highly qualified, invested in often by the American taxpayer, are finding the hostility from this administration so strong that it interferes with their science and they want to pursue science wherever that science takes them. I also sit on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. We have had a number of hearings with nominees recently to fill critical spots. One of those nominees is Dr. Erica Schwartz, a brilliant woman, medical degree, biomedical engineering degree. I think she also told us she has a law degree and a master's in public health. She was a two-star admiral in the United States Navy, an experienced doctor. And yet, when I asked her... When I asked her if she would push back at Secretary Kennedy, if he instructed her to suspend the promotion of the flu vaccine, as he did at some point in the last few months — there's an email to prove it — she couldn't answer that question. She either could not, would not, or had been bullied into evading a question about whether she, as the Director of Health, would push back. The idea that the Director of CDC would stand up to Secretary Kennedy — the most unqualified Secretary of Health and Human Services this country has ever seen, and more than unqualified — somebody who pursues conspiracy theories, degrades people with disabilities, and continues to promote disproved science. That's the state of healthcare. That's the state of healthcare. public health in this country right now, not to mention the trillion dollars or so of cuts to the Medicaid program that is decimating health care in my state and decimating it around the country, not to mention the refusal of my colleagues and this administration to extend critical tax cuts for people who are trying to afford insurance on the Affordable Care Act. I just was at one of my community health clinics, and they are reporting fewer and fewer people coming in for care, disrupting care because they can no longer afford health insurance. And that is impacting, of course, the revenue stream to the community health clinic, their ability to hire and pay people, their ability to take care of their community. That's what I wish we were having hearings about in this committee and in the help committee. That's what I wish we were having hearings about in this committee and in the help committee. That's what I wish we were trying to address in a bipartisan way. But instead we are here. In an attempt to entrap you. Because you had a distinguished career. Trying to put Americans public health first. With that I yield. Senator Blackford. Chairman. Thank you. Thanks for coming today. I know you're invoking your fifth member right, which you have the right to be able to do constitutionally. Thanks for coming. I'd be a part of this. There are a lot of issues and a lot of questions that have come up and hopefully in some day in the future. We'll be able to get all this clarity to be able to pull together. There were over a million Americans that died from Covid. You know that well, you were tracking the numbers literally every single day. Um, those affected and those that died from the earliest days. There are a lot of lessons that we've got to learn from this that we should put into history to be able to determine what happens in the future. How do we respond in the future? How do we deal with something like this again? It was uncharted territory for everyone. But I would tell you countless families, including my own. Watch the loved one died behind glass or through a screen because we couldn't get access to him. Children couldn't get to school. People missed their prom. Or graduation ceremonies. There are lots of things that happened that dramatically changed the future of the country. The mental health issues that we have continued to deal with from the isolation. Have been profound. Even something as simple as Children that wore mass or around adults wearing masks for all that time. Are slower and learning language now because they couldn't watch someone's lips moving. And so they're slower in that. Amazingly enough, churches in places of worship were forced to be closed down. There were even churches that were closed down because they couldn't watch someone's lips moving. And so they're slower in that. Amazingly enough, churches in places of worship were forced to be closed down. There were even churches that were closed down. There were even churches that met. Where the pastor preached in the parking lot, and the tat congregants all met in their cars. With windows up. And police came and scattered them and said you can't be here. The simple act of social distancing became an issue. As everyone guessed, what's there? I distance to be away from someone else. Literacy rates have declined. All these things or results? of lives and the health experiences that have been out there for many americans so there are legitimate questions i want to be able to raise some of those to be able to walk through some of this because it has been very very challenging as we've gone through some of your your notes and your diary and other things that are out there we're trying to be able to pull bits and pieces of things to be able to learn lessons on may the 6th 2020 you wrote at that time i had a conversation with robert redfield as you know well was then the director of cdc about the fact that greater than one million children worldwide have missed their measles vaccination because of the shutdown you stated this is terrible and needs to be addressed since on that basis alone there would be far for far far more excess deaths from measles among children than coronavirus deaths among children i need to bring this up to the team tf the task force did you ever have an opportunity to bring up the potential of measles deaths among children an infection rate going around the world from measles based on the fact that so many children would not get their measles vaccine because of the shutdown i'm sorry senator but on the advice of council i respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment to the constitution that is your right to do one of the big issues really coming up is on the lab issue this was greatly discussed about whether this came from a lab or whether this came from nature there are obvious issues and differences between the two to be able to know this you had a lot of conversation on this scientists around the world were in we're in conversation on this there are different statements that you even made in your private notes and your public notes on it in january the 26th of 2020 this is before we had our even our first tragic death of coronavirus in the united states you wrote it now appears using epi data that the genomic data the first infection was in early december and was not connected to the market which was the big rumor that was out there as this wet market in china we know the market was not the source it was the amplifier on january the 31st you wrote about a phone call you wrote the people in the phone on the phone felt the mutations around the furin cleavage site of the spike protein could not have occurred naturally since it would require an evolutionary jump that they found no way to prevent the spread of the virus and that's why we're in bat isolates they bring up the possibility this could have been deliberately inserted and either accidentally released or deliberately released by a crazy person in the lab the former being the most likely february the first same year 2020 this is again still before our first death there was not total agreement about the likelihood of deliberate insertion ron said he was he was sure that this could occur naturally and we should not waste our time and divert our effort to pursue this this is expected of him since he was the original gain of function person with yoshi also christian was withdrawn the rest felt deliberate insertion was possible and given the fact that dr jingling she at the university of wuhan has been working for years and gain a function in coronaviruses to allow adaptation of the spike protein to bind to the human ace 2 receptor we could not let this go that's a remarkable statement for february the 1st of 2020 when there hadn't even been the first death here but we knew something was moving you knew well that something was moving you identified february the 1st before any of us had ever heard of the wuhan lab not only the wuhan lab in the conversation but literally the scientist that you named in your own notes the lead scientist that was there it's interesting to me on that and the questions i was going to ask you was just your background and knowledge about the wuhan lab and and dr shi and and all the details and i'm going to ask you a couple of questions first and then i'm going to ask you an answer to the follow-up i also want you to know that i know i'm aware of where you have been on trying to be able to lead your fifth minute right which is your right to be able to do but i also want to be able to find out some facts to be able to help us for the future on this the lawrence livermore national laboratory in may of 2020 put out a classified document that has only been recently unclassified on this that had this statement we assess all the necessary conditions for an accidental release of a laboratory modified coronavirus adapted to recognize human cell receptors were present at the Chinese Wu on Institute of Virology in mid to late 2019 now the question that I have for you is this is May the 27th of 2020 this is the report that most people will see is this I have I have clearance I serve on the Intelligence Committee I've actually read this complete document unredacted my concern is were you given the ability to see this document unredacted based on your position were you able to see this and to be able to get this information I could I could see it and I know what's here everybody else just has their conclusion at the beginning of it not this my question to you was going to be did you have access because it's important for the future that people in your position do have access to this kind of information and insight is there any way you could answer that question were you able to give it you could answer that question were you able to give it access to this data on the advice of counsel I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution you wrote on January the 26th of 2020 we should be allowed to send our CDC epidemiologists to China to work with them so you could so they could see the data firsthand you you also wrote in February 12 2020 that you had great concerns about the World Health Organization because there depends greatly on China and as you stated often bows to them this is a really important issue that we've got to resolve for the future it's not just our cooperation with Chinese scientists it's our acknowledgement that China covered up their data wouldn't allow our scientists to be able to come in they cleaned up the wet market they cleaned up the other areas they wouldn't allow you to get access to all the other scientists are there including their health records their medical records their medical records records, what happened to them, or even all the sequencing that they had done in advance. For the future of our research and our cooperation with any scientists around the world, I think it's really important that we resolve, if we're going to fund research and cooperate with you, we've got to have certain things from you. If things go sideways, we've got to have access to all information in all places. You were noting not only that China was affecting the World Health Organization and that China was bending them to their will, and so the World Health Organization was putting out data that you saw, at least at that point, as being from a Chinese perspective covering up what was going on, but you also noted we weren't able to get access to all this information. We've got to be able to figure this out for the future to be able to make sure that research that is done, we have access to all information. If something goes sideways at some point, which clearly it did at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and that being, as was noted by many people, the only the only thing that we can do is to get access to all the information that we have. We have access to all the information that we have. We have access to all the information that we have. There was only one lab in the world that was doing research like this that had a lower standard of actually their security standards there than many other labs around the world, yet they were doing this very dangerous research. What can we gain, and what advice could you give us to say in a future setting we've got to make sure that we actually get information from people and we can be guaranteed that we're going to get that insight? Yes, sir. On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment. I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. I yield back. Senator Blumenthal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to go back to the dark days of the coronavirus pandemic, one of the darkest days or times in our history. Hospitals were overflowing. Navy medical ships were docked in the Hudson River. Emergency rooms were forced into unprecedented triage. During the worst week of the pandemic, which happens to have been the last week of President Trump's first term, more than 25,000 Americans died of COVID-19. Easy to forget those dark days. But for the past 18 months, the Trump administration has been engaged in a campaign to rewrite this history. And today's proceeding, I fear, is part of that effort. One of the darkest days. The Trump administration has launched a baseless set of smears against vaccines that help pull us out of that public health crisis, vaccines that are undoubtedly President Trump's greatest accomplishment. It has slashed funding to local public health departments that were on the front lines of the pandemic. And those health care workers are. Heroes. It has disparaged those heroes as woke. Or wasteful. And it has used a politicized Department of Justice. To target the researchers who helped us track and understand. The novel virus. Today's hearing is another page in that playbook. Sadly, tragically. Dr. Fauci, you've spent five decades in public health. In public service. Including nearly four decades in leadership at the National Institutes of Health. Helping to conquer COVID-19. But also HIV. Swine flu, Zika, Ebola and other epidemics with real life results, saving human lives. Put aside all the. Flowery rhetoric that we hear in the United States Senate. Dr Fauci has saved lives. As have public health officials. In the United States and throughout the world. And today. We are demeaning and degrading. Their lifesaving service. Republicans are eager to rebrand. You as a villain. In order to distract from their own failure to protect Americans from soaring health care costs. And to protect our own health. And to protect our own health. And to protect our own health. And to protect our own health. And to protect our own health. And to protect our own health. They've been rising astronomically in the last couple of years. And from unsafe food. And to protect our own health. From unsafe food. Which has caused cyclospora to spread. Which has caused cyclospora to spread. And resurgent measles. As a result of the anti-vaccine policy. This hearing is the culmination. Of a years long crusade. Which started more than six years ago. When Dr Fauci dared. To contradict. President Trump. The campaign to vilify you, Dr. Fauci, is just one part of this larger campaign against science and facts, a campaign that has made Americans less safe. It is shameful that in a country like ours, a dedicated public service like Dr. Fauci has experienced persistent threats to his life since the pandemic because of the lies that are told about him. His attorney has been gagged, thrown out of this hearing room, but he has written a letter to the chairman that is an explanation for the reasons why Dr. Fauci is, in fact, invoking his constitutional right. It is a right, and I would ask that this letter from David Shurtler and Danny Onato be made part of the record if there's no objection. His attorney has also issued a statement within the last half hour, I believe, that sets forth, again, the reasons that he is here to help protect his client's rights, and I would ask that that statement be made part of the record as well, Mr. Chairman. Without objection. Let's be very clear. The Fifth Amendment is a right of everyone. And the job. It is a right. I would ask that this letter be made part of the record as well, Mr. Chairman. Without objection. you purport to seek information he has been thoroughly transparent and consistent in providing factual information to congress and he is deeply familiar with the processes and protocols of sharing information with the legislative branch and then referring to the chairman this year's long public crusade against dr fauci makes one thing clear this is not a serious effort to seek information from dr fauci in a transcribed interview for a valid legislative purpose you are single-mindedly fixated on dr fauci seeing dr fauci prosecuted for imaginary crimes and you are so invested in that outcome that you have created a personal brand around it those are the words of his attorney and he cites as well the statements of the chairman which indicate a clear intent that the result of this proceeding be a prosecution quote the power of some of us must be used for good like putting fauci in jail that's from december 23 2025. i want to give him a subpoena and a jail cell also from december of 2025 the first was 2024. those kinds of statements by the chairman of a committee in tweets certainly provide a well-founded fear that the proceeding underway is simply an effort to trap dr fauci in some kind of criminal wrongdoing that is not the purpose of a congressional hearing not the valid purpose of a congressional hearing during some of the dark days in this body under senator joe mccarthy it became standard operating procedure to seek that kind of prosecutorial objective we should not be part of a rerun of that kind of effort this attempt to rebrand one of the most challenging times in our nation's history is a short-sighted act of desperation that will leave us less prepared to face the consequences of this act of desperation that will leave us less prepared for the next pandemic it is an insult to the memory of more than one million americans who died from covet 19. if there are valid scientific questions about the origins of this pandemic covet 19 about the kinds of steps that were taken to counter it about the need for more preparation they should certainly be addressed but not in a show trial not as part of a continuing vendetta against a single individual and unfortunately i fear that is what we are seeing today america deserves better thank you mr chairman in no courtroom in america can you have your witness plead the fifth amendment then your attorney gets to testify that's what that letter is the attorney's complaining and and testifying saying he didn't do it the prosecution's unfair you don't get to do that that's one thing you give up when you take the fifth amendment you say i'm not going to testify i'm not going to give you any information you don't then get to put your lawyer forward to justify it he can do it in the press but you can't come and testify he was not invited to testify and he was out of order and it was appropriate to have him injected senator chairman paul thank you for doing this i think i know in my state people have been asking questions about Dr. Fauci for years. So, Dr. Fauci, your entry has made clear that you love being a hero, a celebrity, and you're having the eyes of the world upon you. You loved every newspaper profile, every photo shoot, every fancy dinner with the elites. To many Americans who lost family members, who lost trust in our federal government, you're not a hero. Unfortunately, you're a villain. You made yourself the story and abandoned the American people to serve your own ego. To begin, I'd like to talk about your relationship with David Marins. He was the senior advisor in the NIAID, Office of the Director, your office, for 16 years. He was your friend. He was a frequent guest at your house. You reportedly co-authored over 50 scientific articles with him. You turned to him first right after COVID-19 first occurred. Earlier this year, the Department of Justice charged him with conspiracy against the United States. In addition to other charges, as part of a conspiracy, he was also charged with conspiracy to conceal information and falsify records to suppress alternative theories about the origins of COVID-19. Now, you've publicly ticked this man to the curb, saying, Dr. Marins was not an advisor to me on institute policy or other substantive issues. So let's start with the use of personal Gmail accounts in David Marins' relationship with Peter Daszak. David Marins tells Peter Daszak, president of Equal Alliance, and you've got this in front of you, it's Exhibit 1, and it's already in the record as part of this. It says, quote, P.S. I forgot to say that there is no worry about FOIA. I can either send stuff to Tony on his private Gmail or hand it to him at work or as house. He is too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble. Dr. Fauci, did Dr. Marins' relationship with Peter Daszak concern you? Yes or no? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer. Dr. Fauci, did Dr. Marins' relationship with Peter Daszak concern you? Yes or no? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer. Based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Did David Marins ever bring documents to your house? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer. Based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Did you ever receive a text about your work at NIAID to your personal cell phone? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer. Based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Did any text about your work at NIAID to your personal cell phone? ID that went to your personal cell phone ever become part of federal records? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Did you maintain a personal email account while serving as director? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Did you ever receive work-related communications on that Gmail account from David Marins? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Did you preserve any work-related communications on that Gmail account from David Marins? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Did David Marins ever provide you with documents outside of those two ways that would violate NIH policy for four year compliance? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution now let's look at two other communications you emailed Dave Moran's on January 26 2020 quote it is important that I speak with you tonight please call me at home this is the part of exhibit 2 that you have in front of you this email is sent the same day the exact same day you write in an internal document quote now we know the market was not the source it was the amplifier unquote would you call the origins of Code 19 a substantive issue on the advice of counsel I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution did you discuss code 19 origins with them or ants on this phone on this phone call on the advice of counsel I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Now let's take a closer look at the last time you testified before Congress. This is part of what you have in front of you is exhibit four, which is part of the record. In June 2024, you testified to Dr. Moran's quote, was not an advisor to me on institute policy or other substantive issues. Furthermore, his office is located in a different building from that of the NIAID director, unquote. Is that still your testimony today? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. So today under oath, your testimony remains that Dr. Moran's was not an advisor to you on institute policy or substantive matters. On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. I've got exhibit five, which you have in front of you. On October 24, 2021, David Moran's texted you to provide information about an advocate for the Constitution. He has a controversial EcoHealth Alliance grant. You thank him and tell him you will check the information. Would you agree that this shows an advisory relationship between David Moran's and yourself? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Would you agree that you two were discussing a substantive issue? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. If documentary evidence establishes that Dr. Moran's advise you regarding EcoHealth Alliance COVID origins or grant policy, then your June 2024 testimony would have been inaccurate, correct? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Is there any document in your possession today that would contradict your prior congressional testimony? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Have you deleted, destroyed, or instructed anyone to destroy records after learning Congress is investigating these matters? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Are you aware of anyone who did? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. As you know, Dr. Moran still faces charges related to destroying records while you distance yourself from him. Is that fair to a decades-long frat? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. When is the last time you spoke to him? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. In hindsight, are you disappointed how you handled COVID? Do you have any regrets? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. to the Constitution. Dr. Fauci, I want to close with this. Here's how you impacted my family and people close to me. I have daughters with children. You can't imagine the questions they had around vaccines for their kids and themselves and the pressure, the unbelievable pressure to make the right decision for their health. I can tell you pregnant women who worked with me were so scared because every time they went to the doctor, they were told something different about taking the vaccine and you caused this. Imagine being a mom trying to protect their kids or an expectant mother trying to figure out what to do. Every three weeks, a doctor tells you a new set of guidance on a vaccine. The haphazard information you released and pushed on the American people with little research is appalling and why there's so much distrust in our institutions today. That trust is crucial to public health and you more than any person or event in my lifetime have destroyed that trust for millions of Americans. You lied to hundreds of millions of people amid the worst public health crisis in this century. You failed to follow your own guidance. You forced people to watch their loved ones die alone over the phone. It's disgusting. You destroyed the federal government's credibility when it comes to public health. We have entire generations of Americans who rightfully so do not trust your institution to keep people safe because of you. This has destroyed decades of progress and lifetimes of work because you wanted to fuel your own ego and be the center of attention. What would you do differently knowing what you know today, Dr. Fauci? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. All the evidence is right here and you still can't bring yourself to tell the truth or apologize because you received an auto-pinned pardon from a staffer in the Biden White House. If we have another pandemic tomorrow, millions could die because of what you did, what you did to make Americans lose trust in their government when it comes to medicine and health care. How many families have you apologized to had to watch their loved ones die alone? You breached public trust and now you're hiding behind a fraudulent pardon. Your legacy will not be as a man who has saved America from COVID, but as a man who destroyed the public trust in America's public health institutions in exchange for five minutes of fame. This is how history will remember you. I yield back. Senator Kim. Thank you, Dr. Fauci, for coming on out in front of this committee. I know it's not what you would want. It's not what you deserve. I just want to say and start by just saying thank you to you for your service to this nation. I didn't know much about you prior to the pandemic. I came to learn about you from how many Americans did, but I also had the opportunity to talk to you and engage with you as someone who is a member of the Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis over in the House of Representatives. When I learned about. Your background 38 years as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, appointed by President Reagan, served under seven presidents, four Republicans and three Democrats. I admire that greatly. I myself had a chance to serve in the executive branch, serving government under both a Republican president and a Democratic president. And I believe that we need more of that. More of that type of work. A place where we can understand our jobs, not as coming from a place of partisanship and politics, but that of just public service. And right now I feel the hyper partisanship growing in this country in dangerous ways. I feel it much more present here on the Hill than I did back when I served as a nonpartisan career public servant at the State Department. And I worry about it. I worry about what kind of trajectory we're on as a country and what this causes when it comes next for public service and those willing to step up for our nation. And it's not just in the attacks, but we see it brought out with the cuts to funding, to the firing of federal workers, to the demonization of their motivations. People calling our public servants criminals. Thinking that they are there solely to undermine others that are trying to engage. I look at it right now. You know, it's not just that the people are being attacked, our public servants being attacked, but that it's undermining the very nature of the work of governance. You know, these cuts to HHS funding, to NIH funding, to the grants, cuts to the researchers doing the critical work. To find cures and medicines. These firing, these cuts, they're creating a chilling effect. Honestly, a chilling effect for the next generation of people who might consider stepping up to serve our nation. To be the next generation of researchers who now are wondering whether this is the right thing for them to do at a time when they see some of their colleagues, those that they looked up to being attacked. Their funding. being cut. Researchers that I talked to who are now either leaving the country or considering leaving the country to do their work because of the sheer unpredictability of America. That this nation so great, so powerful, has now been crippled with this sense of unpredictability and unreliability. That is not the type of country that I hope we strive to be. I've raised this because these attacks upon Dr. Fauci, it's not just about him. It's sending signals to others. Others who are thinking about serving our country, our scientists, our doctors, our healthcare professionals, our researchers. Trying to show to them that if you don't get in line with the politics that you will also potentially be subject to attacks. And from the work that he has done from HIV, AIDS, to Ebola, to COVID, you know, we've seen him try to engage in these crises. They're not easy. Especially when it's a novel disease, when you don't know what comes next. A lot of unknowns. Having to make decisions without the full breadth of knowledge we always wish we had in hindsight. But there is nothing perfect, no perfect clarity when it comes to pandemics, when it comes to crises. I worked in national security in wars and crises. I made judgment calls, gave my best information, and I was able to do it. I was able to do it. I was able to do it. I was able to do it. I was able to do it. I was able to do it. I was able to do it. I was able to do it. I was able to do it. So I dust that I have to give this advice to generals, to ambassadors, even to a president. Did I get it all Right? No. Did I do my best? I did everything I thought I could with the information that I had. The public servants, they do this work because they love this country, and that they strive to improve it. It's not an easy job, but it is because there is so much at stake in our country. But these public servants do it because they are in the arena i just want to end by just reading a portion of this because i think it's important as we're thinking about how to be able to treat public servants through this country to think through this and in the words of teddy roosevelt saying it's not the critic who counts not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood who strive valiantly who errors becomes short again and again who spends himself in a worthy cause who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least he fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat thank you for your service dr fauci i yield back senator holling thank you mr chairman well nothing says honesty like taking the fifth huh doc let's try something what day of the week is it today on the advice of council i respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment to the constitution what color tie you're wearing on the advice of council i respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment to the constitution what color is the carpet in front of you on the advice of council i respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment to the constitution let's just get one thing straight you don't have any rights under the fifth amendment because you've been pardoned as you very well know as a supreme court has been clear for a century and more brown versus walker 1896 when he has been pardoned he may not stand upon his privilege you know that your lawyers sitting behind you now shifting nervously in their chairs they know it this isn't about the constitution this isn't about the law this is about contempt contempt for this body and contempt for the american people but i think i know why you're doing it it's because you don't want to answer questions it's because you did all kinds of terrible things it's because during the pandemic you got rich didn't you you got rich while people were dying hundreds of thousands of americans over a million in the end and you were getting rich and not only were you doing that you were using federal employees with taxpayer money to apply for and solicit cash prizes for you personally cash prizes totaling over a million dollars you did all of that during the pandemic didn't you that's a question on the advice of counsel i respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment to the constitution you remember greg fulkers who was that on the advice of counsel i respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment to the constitution your chief of staff is the answer do you remember patricia conrad who was that on the advice of counsel i respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment to the constitution uh-huh she was your personal assistant and what were these individuals doing in the depth of the pandemic in november of 2020 when millions of americans were suffering from covid what were they doing i tell you what they're doing fokers was on your behalf soliciting and gathering information for a cash award let's look at it we've got his email right here right over my shoulder foker says i'm working on this nomination for the dan david award for fauci we need to beef up the covid part do you have language in the can that you could share that delineates how we responded in new ways to covet he sends this to multiple federal employees what was the dan david award do you remember doc on the advice of counsel i respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment to the constitution it was a 900 000 cash award 900 thousand dollar cash award and he got it because he used federal employees to get it and this wasn't the only award was it dr fauci in fact you applied for and received at least eight other federal cash prizes on federal time using federal employees and federal resources here they are over my shoulder besides the dan david award you've got the partnership for public service you've got the adelson prize you've got the Smithsonian Award. You've got the National Academy of Medicines Award. You've got the CDC Foundation. In fact, you turned your staff into a full-time application machine. You actually wrote to people and said, do you think maybe I'd qualify? And you got cash for all of this. And it wasn't just one or two employees, was it? In fact, you used eight separate federal employees on federal time using federal resources to solicit cash awards. Isn't that true? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Here they are right over my shoulder. Here's all of them. The people that you use, federal employees, so that you could go and get cash money. And the most hilarious part is that you weren't content to even dragoon them into applying for all of these cash awards. You then had them go out to the ethics agencies and ethics watchdogs and demand that you be able to get the money. That's right. We've got it in your hands. We've got it in your hands. We've got it in your hands. We've got it in your hands. We've got it in your hands. We've got it in your hands. We've got it in my hands. Wait a minute. Instead of you they need staff and clean staff in order to get access to all the technology available and then the general security just gives their staff time to check that. You don't just look and search emails, search through your emails. Your staff and employees on federal time using federal resources being paid with federal dollars are soliciting cash for you and then they're turning around and saying to the agency, We don't want just an answer. We want to get to yes, because Fouchy wants the money. He wants it. We want to get to yes. And yes takes so that you could get money, so that you could get rich. And it violated the law, didn't it, Dr. Fauci? Didn't it? It violated the law, didn't it? It is a question. You can answer. Go ahead. On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Federal law, as you very well know, prohibits the solicitation of cash awards or other personal benefits for federal employees. And it certainly prohibits using your own employees to do this. 5CFR Section 2635205B, it says it right there in black and white. You cannot use federal resources, federal dollars, federal employees, federal offices, federal email, federal time to solicit cash awards. And you did all of it. And the worst part is thousands of people were dying while you were doing it. You were supposed to be the nation's doctor, and you're playing. You're the one on TV. But this is what you were doing with your time. Isn't that true? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Yeah. Yeah, I can see why. I can certainly see why. You know what I can't quite figure out is that why you were so obsessed with it, because you're already rich. I mean, and your scheme worked here. I mean, your net worth now is north of $12 million. You got over a million dollars in cash. You got over a million dollars in cash awards during COVID, during a 12-month, 24-month span during COVID. A million bucks you knocked down in cash money using federal resources. Now you're worth more than $12 million. You've got a pension that in its first year paid out north of $400,000 a year. A million people dead, you're getting rich. A million people dead, you're using federal employees to get cash awards for you. A million people dead, and you're here taking the fill. A million people give to you. You're telling us this because you don't want to admit that what really happened in all that time was a multi-month, multi-year course of self-dealing. Isn't that true, Dr. Fauci? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Yeah, well, silence is admission. And here's the real thing. At the end of the day, it wasn't just about the money, really, was it? It was really about a power trip. I mean, through all of this, you, you want to be the most famous scientist in the world the world. You were so focused on getting every award and every drop of cash that you could all because you wanted to be on TV. You wanted to be the sun God of science. You wanted to be the guy who was in charge of it all. You wanted to blam bass Trump. You wanted to make sure that nobody else stole your spotlight. You wanted to be the guy you had time to sit for in style magazine. Here's what you were doing with your time. You could sit for in style magazine, but you can't answer questions for the American people. You could sit for in style magazine, but you're here taking the fifth. You could sit for in style magazine and get a million bucks in cash awards, but now the cat's got your tongue. I bet he does. I tell you what, here's my conclusion from all of this. This was really all about you the whole time. Somewhere along the way, you lost your way. You may have been a good public servant at one time. I don't know, but what I can tell you from reading your emails now, from listening to your emails, from listening to your emails, from listening to your emails, from looking at what you did, how you used your employees, somewhere along the line, it became all about you. You became a narcissist and a megalomaniac and a liar. And you've lied to the American people and you've lied to this body. And you've disgraced your profession by doing it. You called yourself the most famous scientist in the world. You've done more to harm science than anybody in my lifetime. And I hope you'll go home and write that in your diary. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Fetterman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, Dr. Fauci, I'm not here to perhaps attack you or defend or anything. It's really just, just more, uh, honestly, I'm just want to acknowledge I have had members of my family die from COVID. And now I also grieve for people that I've met that have lost their business through the pandemic and they'll never been the same. Now, as during the pandemic, I was the last person to die from COVID. I was the last person to die from COVID. I was the last person to die from COVID. I was the last person to die from COVID. I was the last person to die from COVID. I was the last person to die from COVID. Lieutenant governor. So we were in the middle of, of all of that maelstrom trying to find the right balance between protect life and protect the economics and for all of it. And I'm not sure if we got it all right or wrong. Um, but without a doubt, I can continue to question myself, but one that I, it's not about much more your regrets, but I have one. And that is early on that there was the theory that the virus could have emerged from the lab and early on that became like a right wing kinds of theory. And I thought it seemed to make sense. Now there was a really advanced lab that was close by. And then you have this unknown virus, uh, out. So, uh, but that became a very partisan thing. And now, uh, it seems now it's more and more emerging theory that that would have caused the virus to emerge from the lab. So, uh, but that became a very partisan thing. And now, uh, it seems now it's more and more emerging theory that that would have caused the virus to emerge from the lab. So, uh, but that became a very partisan thing. And now, uh, it seems now it's more and more emerging theory that that would have caused the virus to emerge from the lab. come from from the lab. Now, you know, I hope I think that the next time our nations facing something like this, we are not become, you know, as I might have been blinded by the partisan idea that maybe the truth might come from a side that's different than than you are. But I think we should really be willing to pursue truth, no matter where that may have emerged, you know, after for all of that. So and I now see the the remain back to the chair. Thank you. Senator Moreno. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will echo Senator Johnson's comments about your opening statements. Chairman, I think it was it was dead on very, very well done. Mr. Fauci, do you know who David shirtler is? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Fifth Amendment, Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. What is the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution say? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights on the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. No, I'm just asking you what it says. On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. I'm going to give the Constitution to my aid. He'll bring it over to you so you can have it for future reference. I think it's something that every American should know what the Constitution says. Do you know who wrote the Fifth Amendment? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer. Based upon my rights on the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. So you're invoking a right that you don't know who wrote it or what it says, is that correct? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Wow. Well, let me tell you who David shirtler is for the audience because he was ejected by the chairman. He's a high profile criminal attorney. He's represented some really great people like Senator Bob Menendez. Maybe that's. Somebody who my Democrat colleagues may remember took gold bars as bribes from the Egyptians. And there's an article here in the Washington Free Beacon that talks about. Why you would hire guy like Denver shirtler and the comment is if you're in deep shit, that's who you call. Do you feel like you're in deep shit? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Clearly. What you think today is that somehow you're above reproach. Somehow you feel like you. Don't need to be treated like a normal American. Can you do me a favor in the audience and stand up if during the time of the covert pandemic, you were called the racist. For calling the virus a Wuhan virus or the China virus. If you thought the six foot rule was total crap. If you thought the virus. The vaccine wasn't something that you should take if you thought it was outrageous the way the mass policy was rolled out if you were fired from your job for not taking that vaccine, including members of the military. If you thought closing schools was catastrophically stupid and that you thought that during these times saying these things made you somehow a lesser human being. Dr Frederick, you just turn around and look at the people behind you. You're not willing to do that. That's not a question. It's not a question. To your lawyers, not a question. It's a request. All you have to do is look up from your lawyers. And look at the people who were absolutely shamed for saying what we know now to be the truth. You can't even look at them? That's a question. Are you able to look at them? You can sit down in the audience. There was a mom. In Ohio. In the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. Decided to go to her high school football game for her son. They hadn't been out much. The kids had been learning at school. And then the school got shut down. They hadn't really gotten much out of that education. As any parent knew, that remote learning was no learning at all. But it was a Friday night. Her son wanted to go watch. Her buddy go play football. So they went to the stadium. They sat alone. Far from everybody else. Just a mom, a dad. A few kids. They didn't feel they needed to wear masks. Because it was stupid. Because they were outside. They all lived together. They're not near anybody. Dr. Fauci, do you know what happened to that mom and that family? That's a question. On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. They were dragged out of that stadium. And arrested. Those policies were put in place because you had moronic politicians that listened to the words of a megalomaniac who was more interested in having met a Kardashian than the suffering of the American people. And that is you. Your advice to communities like that, to idiotic politicians who enforce those rules, arrested that mom for watching a football game with her own family outside. When that story broke, I said to myself, I cannot stand I. Lee on this. I cannot stand I. Lee on the side and watch this happen. It was about six years ago today that I decided I'm going to give up my businesses, sell them all, run for office, run for the United States Senate. Here I am sitting in front of you six years later saying, who the fuck do you think you were for doing that? It is a total disgrace what you did to this country. And if my Democrat colleagues are standing there defending you, I hope the voters of the United States of America watch the clips of every one of you doting on a guy who was more interested in being a celebrity than saving American people. I will make it my mission to make certain that every single one of those Democrats who did that will see that clip over and over and over again. Because defending, there is no defense of what you did. You may have had a 50-plus year legacy of public service, but it ends in total and complete disgrace. So let me ask you an opportunity to answer one question. Will you apologize, just apologize, to the people who you harmed through your actions? Will you say, do you have the dignity to just say you're sorry? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. So you won't apologize to the military members who Joe Biden summarily dismissed from the military for not taking the vaccine? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Will you apologize to the business owners that lost their business, shattered their lives, and they'll never recover? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Will you apologize to the moms who had to force their infant children, two, three, four-year-olds, to put masks on, and what that did and how that traumatized those kids? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Will you apologize to the family members or the people who died because they took your advice and not only got the first vaccine but the five, six other boosters that they did not need? To answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Will you apologize to that mom from Ohio for being arrested for watching a football game with her family? Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. So you didn't know who wrote the Fifth Amendment. It's James Madison. Lived in this town. I can only wonder what he would think of somebody like you invoking his writings to shield culpability. For the actions that you took. It's no secret why you have to hire the biggest dirtbag attorney on the planet. Because of what you did. I hope you're paying him well. And I hope that one way or the other, somewhere, sometime, you answer for your crimes. Senator Ernst. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing today. Dr. Fauci, Americans haven't forgotten the tragic stories of people who lost loved ones during COVID and those that were denied a chance to say goodbye to their family members that were in hospitals or residing in nursing homes because of the COVID-19 protocols. Americans haven't forgotten the mandates, the adverse reactions to vaccines, the government misinformation, social media censorship, hotlines to tattle on their neighbors, the forced school closures, the tragic rise in suicides, or those businesses that were forced to close during lockdowns. Americans haven't forgotten the hundreds of billions of dollars spent by taxpayers for COVID relief stolen by fraudsters who bought Royals, excuse me, Rolls-Royces and yachts. These were taxpayer dollars. Americans have lost trust in science and government after the COVID response. Trust which will be incredibly difficult for us to gain back. Dr. Fauci, you said that the science was evolving and that your recommendations evolved with it. But Americans remember you as the public face of the coronavirus response. As one of the nation's most trusted voices, you urged policies you said were absolutely necessary even when those policies came at an enormous human and economic cost. And Americans deserve answers about reports that you may have worked with others to pressure the president into adopting the slow the spread strategy and why you later sought an unconditional pardon for crimes you may have committed dating back to 2014. Dr. Fauci, in 2022, you had a taxpayer-funded salary of $480,000 a year. You were, in fact, the highest paid federal employee in the entire federal government, even making more than the NIH director and the president of the United States. According to now public documents, that was due in large part to your work on biodefense. Unreported is how NIAID spent over $1 billion from 2009 to 2026 in biodefense and influenza federal contracts and subcontracts. My office uncovered records on usaspending.gov that show from 2015 to 2020, NIAID paid out $515,418 in subcontracts to Harvard Veterinary Institute in Harbin, China, including $100,000 a few days after it opened a BSL-4 biolab in 2018. That very same institute was criticized for doing gain-of-function bird flu research in 2013. And yet you were funding them for years after that, sending U.S. taxpayer dollars to China. These contracts, which we also traced to NIAID, show U.S. taxpayers funded gain-of-function researchers in the Netherlands and in Wisconsin, funding the same folks whose controversial work led President Obama to pause this exact type of dangerous pandemic research. Dr. Fauci, did you know that the NIH's billion-dollar Sears contract programs were funding gain-of-function researchers in China, the U.S., and in the Netherlands? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Dr. Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx wrote in her book that you and President Obama's former CDC director were at a Saturday, March 14, March 14, we're at a Saturday, March 14, yes, 2020 meeting at her home two days before the president announced his 15 days to slow the spread effort. Your now-released diary said the meeting was a week before that. Dr. Birx said you all were trying to trap the president into having no other options. She wrote, your plan was to, quote, block any of the president's escape routes, so, quote, he'd have no choice but to agree to our flatten-the-curve measures. Yes or no, Dr. Fauci, did you try to block or trap President Trump into the slow-the-spread flatten-the-curve measures in March 2020? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. When the COVID-19 virus broke out in Wuhan, China, you, Dr. Fauci, knew pretty much right away that NIH had funded Chinese labs, including those doing coronavirus research. There's email traffic from early January 2020 where your staff was flagging for you that NIH funded coronavirus research at the Wuhan lab through EcoHealth Alliance. Yet few Americans knew we funded the Wuhan lab because the funding went through a sub-award, and was not reported to the public database like usaspending.gov as it should have been. Also, EcoHealth violated federal law by failing to report in its research papers how much taxpayer funding it spent on that research. At my request, the Government Accountability Office helped track down that $1.4 million of U.S. taxpayer money that was sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, both by U.S. and by you, Dr. Fauci, and through USAID. But first, it passed through EcoHealth Alliance, which I helped to get defunded through the NDAA. Dr. Fauci, did you intentionally use sub-award funding to obscure NIH funding of Chinese bio labs and coronavirus research? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. NIAID awarded multimillion-dollar grants to a number of scientists shortly after they wrote publicly in the Proximal Origins paper that the COVID virus likely came from nature. The documents Chairman Paul released last week show in private those same scientists were much more open to the virus being from a lab. In 2023, Representative Jordan insinuated that you basically gave a $9 million bribe in the form of an NIH grant to NIH-funded virologists to say the virus likely was from nature. Dr. Fauci, yes or no, did you reward the Proximal Origins authors by giving them NIAID grants or contracts? I absolutely decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Dr. Fauci, we have learned that U.S. coronavirus researchers at UNC shipped, quote, humanized or transgenic mice to China by around 2017 for use in their dangerous coronavirus work. Under your NIAID coronavirus, researchers also used aborted baby body parts in mice research, and taxpayers paid for them to do that. NIH-funded coronavirus researcher Dr. Ralph Baric and his colleagues at UNC put parts of livers, thymuses, and chunks of human fetal lung that they got from aborted almost five-month-old human babies. They put those parts in their research mice. They disgustingly named them BLT-L mice and wrote they had created a, quote, sandwich of aborted body parts in the mice. Get it, folks? BLT. A BLT sandwich. Your RML lab employees in Montana also ordered and used aborted baby body parts in their taxpayer-funded research, and emails show how they planned to use those mice for post-COVID work. NIH-funded putting aborted babies' fingers and scalp off the heads of aborted babies and putting them into the backs of research mice. The scalps later grew fine baby hair in the mice. They even included those disgusting photos in their research paper that you funded. Not all of those were research on coronaviruses, but some were. Thankfully, the current NIH director has said no more of this. Dr. Fauci, yes or no? Do you think that human aborted parts should be put into mice for coronavirus research? The advice of counsel I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Mr. Chairman, would you direct the witness to answer the questions that we have been asking? You probably would if he was here, but I can direct it. But I think we understand his answer. We do. We do understand that Americans are asking for accountability, Dr. Fauci, and your silence is very telling. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Senator Moody. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, I'm the most junior member of the Senate here, showing from where I sit. I just got here last year. Many of you may remember I was the attorney general in Florida who fought back against the lockdowns, the school closures, the church closures, everything to embrace sanity and science. We fought back. We got ridiculed for it. And we didn't just call people names. We actually empaneled a grand jury of people of all walks of life, all political persuasions. So that's how I came here, fighting for a free state amongst states that had locked their own people down. We are now called the free state of Florida. And I believe our responsibility here is to make sure that government remembers the people are our bosses, that we report to them, that we're accountable to them. Government shouldn't operate for itself. Government operates on behalf of and for the American people. And anytime we get close to reporting back to our bosses about what government has done or how it's been abused or how individuals that are employed by the government had acted in their own self-interest or against the interests of the American people, every time we get close, if we start uncovering outrageous fraud, we'll have a hearing. And the tactics have been to not show up. So you'll have all of us over here trying to drill down on why we've been given money that actually works against American citizens, and no one shows up. Today there's... Well, nobody's here at the moment. Today there seems to be a different tactic. Today we have Democrats showing up and trying to spin why we shouldn't even be having this hearing to report back to our bosses. One said, today's hearing does damage. It will deter others from public service. Another said, this hearing is designed to entrap you. Another said, oh, one fell all over himself, flattering you, thanking you for your service multiple times, quoting man in the arena. Another said that we are demeaning first responders, and today is a sad play in a repeated playbook. Or we're going after one man. I mean, all of their time was used on why we should not be having the hearing to report back to our bosses and give the people accountability. So I would like to talk about that, because I believe that trust, the trust the American people place in our public health institutions and what happened to that trust during COVID is important. Because in a public health emergency, they are asked to make extraordinary sacrifices based on advice given to them by the government that is supposed to be working for them. And for that system to work, the public has to be able to trust them, trust the people giving them instructions. That trust depends on candor. Would you agree with that, Dr. Fauci? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. And when the evidence is uncertain, officials need to say so. When recommendations are based on assumptions rather than hard data, they need to say so. And when they get something wrong, they need to own it. And when the trust is lost and the consequences extend far beyond any single pandemic, the next time public health officials genuinely need Americans to listen, millions of people may simply ignore them or not believe them. And Dr. Fauci, you were undeniably the face of the federal government's COVID response. You said so yourself in your diary. You said it's not hyperbole to say I've become the most famous and talked about person in the country. So I want to understand how we got here. Let's start at the beginning. On March 8th, 2020, you appeared on 60 Minutes to discuss the spread of COVID-19. You were specifically asked to clear up the confusion and misinformation surrounding masks. You told the American people, right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with a mask. The interviewer immediately stopped you and said, are you sure of it? Because people are listening really closely to this. And instead of walking back or qualifying your statement in any way, you doubled down. There's no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you're in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little better. It might even block a droplet, but it's not providing the perfect protection that people think it is. And often there are unintended consequences. People keep fiddling with their masks. They keep touching their face. Just a few weeks later, the CDC released its guidance recommending that Americans wear masks in public. You were asked to explain your original recommendation. You emphasized a very different consideration. You said, well, back then, the critical issue was to save the masks for the people who really needed them because it was felt there was a shortage of masks. So I want everybody to sit with that. The critical issue driving your initial recommendation to the American public was scarcity, logistics, not medical evidence. So when you told the American people there was no reason to wear a mask, what was your principal objective, giving them an honest assessment of the medical evidence or discouraging them from consuming a scarce supply of masks? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Well, unfortunately, that was just the beginning of a broader pattern. Let's talk about the six-foot distancing rule. In April 5th, 2020, interview on CBS said, every time I get to that podium in the White House briefing room, I always essentially plead with people, please take a look at those very simple guidelines of physical separation. And they're very simple. They're very, very clear. Physically separate six feet away. Yet when Congress finally asked you in 2024 what science supported that evidence, six-foot distance rule for COVID, you admitted you were not aware of any studies supporting it. Incredibly, you said the six-foot rule sort of just appeared and described it as an empiric decision that wasn't based on data. That rule had real consequences. Schools didn't open back up. Businesses didn't open back up. Churches didn't open back up. I could go on and on and on. And Americans were kept physically separated from one another during the most difficult moments of their lives. Many lost loved ones during that time. So Dr. Fauci, did you have any evidence to support a six-foot separation rule when you gave that advice to Americans? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. All right, well, let's look at the lockdowns then. By 2022, the consequences of prolonged COVID lockdowns on our children were clear, from delayed development to social isolation, which is probably why you were asked in July 2022 whether you would recommend locking down schools again. And you said, first of all, I didn't recommend locking anything down. But now we have your diary, and it tells a very different story from the one you told the public. And I will quote, I spoke with Bill de Blasio, the mayor of NYC, and convinced him based on what I was saying publicly in my conversation tonight to close the NYC schools. He had already decided based on what I was saying on TV. I went on to tell him he should close the bars and restaurants in NYC. And he said he would do this based on my recommendation. You even said that you told the president we should shut the whole country down. So Dr. Fauci, how do you square telling the American people publicly that you didn't recommend locking anything down with your own diary entry based on federal government equipment, saying that your recommendation is what convinced the mayor and the president to lock things down? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Now, I just want to make clear that when in Florida, we were pleading with people to give us advice based on scientific evidence, that we were getting these conflicting statements by you that didn't match science. That didn't match scientific data. And in fact, when we impaneled a grand jury, the grand jury's conclusion, not surprising to anyone, and by the way, we're still the only state to have impaneled a grand jury. I was the only attorney general to do this. We did this in 2023. That conclusion was the lockdown mask and social distancing advice administered by federal agencies and implemented by certain local, state, and federal agencies was not based on the best available scientific data. In fact, many recommendations and their accompanying mandates departed significantly from available research. Again, people from all walks of life, all political persuasions, that is what they found. And yet, during that time, while you were giving those statements, knowing there was no scientific basis for it, and we know now you knew it because we have your diary entries, you called the governor to fight to keep Washington and D.C. out of our state so that we could indeed respect the rights of our citizens. You called our governor, Governor DeSantis, and I'm going to quote this so I get it right, right out of your journals, a total jerk, that he is a complete disgrace, that he is blocking local authorities from mandating masks in various locations, including schools. And you were very concerned and upset that we were actively, and I'm going to quote, criticizing you, and we talked virtually every day about being wrong on everything. And what is astounding is that you wrote you feared because of that, because we were questioning our government, because we were fighting back for the truth from our government, from scientifically based recommendations, because we were pushing for that. You said you feared that our democracy is in dire danger. Thank goodness we have people up here that I work with that understand our role, which is to report to our bosses, the people, because they are in charge, calling for our government to be honest with us and transparent with us and accountable to us. That is a democracy. What you did is the opposite. And I cannot believe I have to explain this to someone who represented our government and some of the most important issues for so long. And before I conclude, if I can just put up our pardon. This is the pardon you have heard so much about. And Dr. Fauci, the only other person that got a pardon like this, I believe, had a last name of Biden. This pardon goes back to, and if you'll see, January the 1st of 2014. Did you talk to President Biden and ask for this pardon? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Who did you talk to in the White House about this pardon? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Did you specifically ask that it be dated back to the beginning of 2014? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Did you do that so that you would be given immunity going back to the beginning of 2014 on the advice of counsel I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution I'm just very interested why it was this date did it have anything to do with the fact that 2014 was also the year that the NIAID or NIH began funding eco health alliances understanding the risk of bat coronavirus emergence grant on the advice of counsel I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution and this is the same grant that funded the work on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute on virology millions of Americans are questioning what happened during COVID why we were getting given misleading information misleading advice why you gave conflicting statements based on I guess how you were feeling that day and Americans rightfully we lost over a million Americans they should be insulted when the Democrats insult our chair that he's doing this because he is on an obsessive mission to go after one man could his obsession obsessive mission be to find out why American a million Americans died and who might be responsible for that and where that started could that be his mission dr. Fauci on the advice of counsel I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution and after everything we have just walked through can you sit here today and tell the American people our bosses that you bear no responsibility for their collapse and trust of their government it's based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution time has expired we're going to do another quick round for those who remain about five minutes any questions that haven't come up that are pressing let's try not to re go over territory that's already been done I'll begin by asking unanimous consent to insert into the record documents show that show that the CIA transferred funds to NIAID through interagency agreement hearing no objection so ordered we had hoped to hear testimony from Anthony Fauci today we haven't but I think it's important that we do hear from him so we will have a video we'll play in a moment for years Anthony Fauci has been the public leader of the United States and the United States has been the public leader of the United States and the United States has been the public leader of the United States and the United States has been the public face of saying this in all likelihood came from nature he kept saying it's the marketplace it's the marketplace it's a marketplace he's been saying that on television up until recently but what we find is that what he was saying in public is different than what he was saying in private in January in private he wrote that looks like the wet market was a super spreader event it didn't originate there we know that some of the earliest deaths and sickness came from somewhere else but then for years and years we got dishonest so let's play the video so we can see a little juxtaposition of the problem we're dealing with Fauci's journal entries contradict what he said publicly about the origins of COVID-19 Fauci admitted in January 2020 that the initial outbreak of COVID did not occur at a wet market take a really good look at the animal-human interface and the fact that animals from the wild are being brought into wet markets you have animals that come out of the wild that are sold and sold at these open what they call them wet markets wet markets where you bring animals in from the wild who have these viruses the wet markets in Asia where people bring animals from the forest into a market there are wet markets in Wuhan that are ample opportunity for a virus to jump from an animal the origin was from a bat to an intermediate host to a human very likely in a wet market and those animals should not have been in the Wuhan market they knew that those animals should not have been in the market and they immediately cleaned out the market put restrictions on the kinds of animals that come into these wet markets I think they should shut down those things right away I mean it just it boggles my mind so repeatedly saying in public different something different than what he believed in private now this is interesting because you know the first SARS in 2003 was traced to a wet market to animals there but interestingly they had evidence they had evidence that the animals had the disease they also had evidence that the handlers had a disproportionately high number of antibodies to the disease so there was evidence and the evidence was presented so when this came out the same thing happened again they did look at the wet market they looked at the wet market and tested I think 80 000 animals and didn't find any animals that had that had covered 19. when they did find COVID-19 and trace samples there they found that the DNA or the RNA was consistent with human spread this was known not later on didn't take years to develop was known in January of 2020 and so Dr Fauci says privately he knows it's it didn't come from the wet market but as you saw those were over a multi-year period one of the other discussions I've had with Dr Fauci over the years about natural immunity so uh most infections you get a degree of immunity not perfect some fairly perfect smallpox you just don't get again George Washington knew this he had his wife get vaccinated but he didn't because he'd already had smallpox but there's one particular story that a man came up to me and lost his wife to covid he said we all got it we all got sick and my wife ended up getting sick enough to the hospital but they we'd recovered two weeks she was still alive two to three weeks later we'd all recovered and they wouldn't let us be with her and to this day it's one of the saddest things and it just you know it I think all of us should think about this they were not allowed to visit their mom he wasn't allowed to visit his wife in the hospital but based on this misunderstanding of natural immunity that for some reason two weeks later they were a problem but this was all promulgated by you we had the workers in the uh you know the meat factories they were essential they had to keep working most of them got COVID they got it in the first couple weeks most of them were younger the reassurance should have come from public health the reassurance should have said congratulations you've recovered it also should be acknowledged what's the number one thing we can do before another pandemic before we have a vaccine before we have monoclonal antibodies it would be to utilize natural immunity so instead of the advice you were giving to Cuomo and others in New York that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people or tens of thousands of people you could have been saying well maybe the nurses taking care of the elderly should be people who are two weeks out from covet infection we could have used natural immunity as somewhat of a block of protection imperfect but the only protection we had and the only thing we could have done instead the nursing homes were seated seated with people had covet so I think the discussion of natural immunity is one where there wasn't sufficient honesty humility there wasn't enough presentation to encourage people that was the only encouraging thing we had for a while is you've got it you're very very if not impossible close to impossible chance that you'll die if you get it again everybody could have been reassured nobody was reassured like well we don't know we just don't quite understand natural immunity my favorite quote from that is from Martin Kulldor from from uh Harvard you called him one of the people he had to take down the fringe epidemiologist which I've never ever heard a scientist call another scientist that but uh he jokingly said on Twitter he said yeah we knew about natural immunity from 486 BC from the time of the Athenian plague we lost all knowledge of it in 2020. the good news is it's slowly coming back 24 to 20 20 25 we're beginning to understand what natural immunity is again not something perfect but a useful tool that could have been used but also something that could have helped people by telling the public my goodness you're not going to die now you have a chance if you've already had it you're 85 years old you're at risk for it you're wanting to feed your wife and they're telling you to wear four masks and not be around your wife when you've already had it it made no sense I visited with a man whose mom was 83 and she was dying from covid they go to the hospital in Orange County they won't admit her to the hospital till she's vaccinated because we have a policy that everybody in the hospital must be vaccinated she's got covid and they wanted to vaccinate her again at one point in time the CDC understood this they told people don't get vaccinated if you've had covid within three months why because it may give you a heightened immune response when you've already got a heightened immune response but giving a person very sick and many of the people who died from covid died from soda this this uh storm of uh of of response this immune storm the the answer wouldn't have been to try to stir up their immune response more by giving them a vaccine the answer was actually steroids and good old-fashioned steroids 37 percent reduction in death it turned out to be way more value than remdesivir way more valuable than any of the other treatments but I don't remember ever hearing a complimentary word on natural immunity or steroids or anything else and you know I wish we could have done more today I would have been willing to accept an apology today I'm sorry I made mistakes we all made mistakes and you know at the time I thought the risk was you know the risks of it were worth the benefits but um but I've reassessed since 15 million people died people say well gosh these things never happen we know it happened in 1977 we know with a hundred percent certainty a virus escaped in 1977 there's something called the Russian flu nobody's exactly positive how it got out but when they sequenced it they found out that a flu in 1977 had exactly the same RNA as a 1954 one that they had in the lab and they'd created a virus in fact turns out anybody born before 1954 was immune and the only people got it were people who had been born between 1954 and 1977 but it was identical the the genetic sequence was identical to this vaccine or the virus from 1954 and that doesn't happen because these respiratory viruses are always mutating to be identical means it had to have leaked from the lab proof positive that it had so we know this happens uh a author by the name of Young wrote a book and said there was 1200 cases of significant accidents that have occurred we knew all of this and yet it was completely discounted because I think you were worried that if it was seen that you funded dangerous research to start the pandemic you'd get blamed and it was a concerted effort wasn't just you anybody associated with the funding decided we needed to protect ourselves Senator Johnson Mr Chairman you mentioned that we lost knowledge of natural immunity I didn't Dr Fauci did I suppose I had an asymptomatic case of covid because of the very faulty PCR tests I never got vaccinated there's or injected there's no way I would have done that because I found out enough about the mRNA gene therapy but you also brought up the issue of hospital protocols I'm going to be holding a public event on hospital protocols we've already received a couple hundred testimonies they are heart-wrenching they are heart-wrenching here's an excerpt from the testimony of a staff surgeon very experienced you know doctor for decades at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett Washington quote after our hospital was given remdesivir by the CDC we were provided misleading slash inaccurate information about the drug biomedical leadership when I had a young trauma patient who was a perfect candidate for remdesivir the infectious disease doctor on call told me to not give it to her because quote she seemed like a nice girl he concludes it was early there I'm desperate kills I said nurses referred to it as run death is near so again I've always been you know because I was never made sense to me that we put all of our eggs in the experimental gene therapy um if you knew anything about it would have you would have avoided it like a plague and we didn't we sabotaged early treatment but the only treatment we really approved monoclonal antibodies which I think basically worked pretty well but those weren't particularly available they were I had an awful lot of patients it was all remdesivir based on a study that the NIH changed the end point from mortality because it had no impact on mortality today's recovery a drug that the who recommended against its use in covid in November of 2020 but a drug that cost over three thousand dollars for a course of treatment versus things like ivermectin hydroxychloroquine who even Dr Fauci and I should have got that one out because I want to take some time to end things in the record so you know we need to have a very tight protocol on remdesivir because it's unknown but hydroxychloroquine I mean that's approved some side effects but we have a long history of it let's put up my latest chart again I was tracking adverse events on on the experimental injection but I I use this chart as a comparison so you've got ivermectin Hydroxychloroquine again a virus doesn't improve causation but you know there's correlation it's there it's safety signal so ivermectin over 30 years of fda reports 17 deaths per year hydroxychloroquine over 38 years of reporting 142 deaths per year remdesivir over five and a half years 546 deaths per year the covert injection almost 7 000 deaths per year what which is safest what what did the fda freak us out about ivermectin hydroxychloroquine when they turn a complete blind's eye toward the injections injury so i want to enter the quote from the surgeon by the way here's here's the answer uh cheryl atkinson in an interview said that when it comes to money we check financial ties among experts on the government panel devising coronavirus treatment guidelines which had the effect of dialing back hydroxychloroquine use and giving an edge to remdesivir we found the 11 members reporting links to a drug company nine of them named relationships to remdesivir's maker gilead seven more including two of the committee leaders have ties to gilead beyond the 11 months they had to disclose two were on gilead's advisory board others were paid consultants who received research support in honor area by the way within the study i think one of the study participants was an employee of gilead a bunch also had conflicts with gilead so gee i wonder why you know their conflicts of interest gilead made billions of dollars off remdesivir and people died in terms of ignoring safety signals you can probably put that down now this has come to light this is dr drew weissman who got the nobel prize for the mrna platform he wrote to dr fauci on february 8th of 2020. tony i wanted to alert you to some new data we generated with our mrna lmp vaccine now it was a higher fold dose but that mrna lmp go to the placenta and fetus measured by translation of the mrna and cause of immune response in an amniotic fluid so that same day dr foucher responds it'd be interesting to see what human dose levels given in her muscular do so about a month later dr weisman replies he said we still have some concerns over the data after they tested at im now again there's there's more documentation in terms of the fda blew it off it's like ah don't worry about that there was a whole thing that's that's what peter marx did when he was shown that uh his uh l serotonin Filter 3 device you've seen the results basically man's Russians and other people's men I'd give them a brief summary like a� algorithms going to mass safety signals the last thing I want to enter in the record here is and I want to make the point you know why is this important that they buried the treatment of severely injection injured the fact that we have an acknowledges injection injuries these people can't get treatment they're being gaslit by their doctors so it's all in your head the rate of the injection injured of suicides is increasing because they've given up hope because our medical establishment federal health agencies completely failed him failing to acknowledge it so again dr. Nath was treating diagnosing treating injection injured in March of 2021 this concerned people so you had dr. Walter Koro shits writes dr. Fauci one of the points he made there's been a steady slow stream of reports to me of post-vaccination neurological conditions dr. Nath has been collecting a bunch he has reports saying that there's been a steady slow stream of reports to me of post-vaccination neurological conditions that we're seeing and I've seen this kind of information everywhere online on the Internet and is now a constantly increasing number of reports are going to get sent out to publish well that alarmed everybody boy you can't let the public know what's actually happening you can't actually let the public know what the science is showing so on April 29th a email from crancid Collins had an i-h to that to dr. Korch at's says I find this approach troubling and dr lawrence tabek writes to francis collins i don't understand what walter why walter does not shut this thing down why don't you shut down that dr nath who's actually treating injection injured why because of vaccine hesitancy and because we haven't acknowledged that and the reason i've been advocating for this is because i know the injection injured i know people who lost love lost loved ones within days of the injection and we've turned our backs on them they deserve acknowledgement they deserve to be heard seen and believed so they can get treatment i also know the doctors whose careers were destroyed because you denigrated things like ivermectin and denied ivermectin to people in hospitals who got their kidneys knocked out by the rendesivir but got put on ventilators never got to hug their loved ones goodbye because those hospital protocols that's what your science did to people so dr fauci my only question is based on your lack of testimony here today uh based quite honestly on our our investigation into the cover-up of safety signals and injection injuries we have issued letters to a number of former fda officials to come in for transcribed interviews you'll be getting a letter today asking for a volunteer tri-school and transcribed interview so i'd be asking will you comply or will i have to subpoena you on the advice of council i respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment to the constitution expected subpoena thank you senator scott dr fauci did you personally receive any royalty payments connected to covet related intellectual property on the advice of council i respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment to the constitution given the NIH receives royalty payments from certain pharmaceutical companies why would any american believe these financial ties did not influence decisions about which treatments were promoted or restricted on the advice of council i respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment to the constitution why doesn't niaid publicly disclose these payments on the advice of council i respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment to the constitution did you partner with bill gates on cannabis funding nomination challenges proposed fund funding program so there we had some evacuation in senator fain's establishment to carry out the meddling efforts in order to fund meddling另外 um members of medicine are obliged to take American rollout these applications amendment to the Constitution. Specifically, dual use research such as countermeasures or gain of function? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Do you know if Bill Gates entities partnered with U.S. government classified programs? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Do you know if Bill Gates maintains an active national security clearance? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Did you advocate or request for Bill Gates to receive a security clearance? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Do you have any knowledge that NIAID or NIH, through HHS, sponsored or requested a security clearance for Bill Gates? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Around 2010, my understanding is that the government shifted its approach to biodefense. Did NIAID, under your leadership, partner with the Obama White House or any other U.S. government classified entities on sensitive countermeasures research? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Did your office take steps to drive biological research investments? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. What was private industry's take on the type of research in the 2010 timeframe? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Was it considered too dangerous to conduct? Any industry was hesitant to take this on and invest in? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Why did you take steps to mature the government's approach to biodefense? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. specific lines of effort or actions you felt were needed during this time to improve the research development and fielding model? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. How was dual use and gain-of-function incorporated or accounted for in maturing biodefense countermeasures? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Did you ever discuss moving gain-of-function countermeasures research out of government space to private industry space? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. How were these private organizations regulated through government oversight while conducting risky research, including gain-of-function or gene-editing technology? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Did the Obama White House or any government entities take steps to inject funding into private industry? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. How do you ensure that our national security and public health is protected when private organizations work with foreign countries of concern and have the no government oversight such as the EcoHealth Alliance research grant you funded in a CCP military lab? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Given the culture of the pay to play at NIAID, did you or anyone acting on your behalf make any payment or enter any arrangement in any way or fashion to secure or influence the broad pardon you received from President Biden? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a letter from the Department of Energy that confirms during Anthony Fauci's tenure that Bill Gates was given Q security clearance from 2014 to 2021. Without objection, that will be entered into the record. I'd also ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the contents of the folder of authorities provided to Dr. Fauci, including the pardon. Let's be clear today, you know, what we've seen. I really did want to hear from Dr. Fauci. I wanted to hear perhaps an apology. Perhaps some semblance of being sorry for what happened or that judgment errors were made. We didn't hear any of that. But he was subpoenaed here to testify, refused to answer any questions even after being directed by the chair and being advised of the law requiring him to do so. He has cited a privilege that is unsupported because of his blanket pardon and because he waived the privilege by testifying at the start. I'm going to give you one more opportunity to comply with that. I'm going to give you one more opportunity to comply with the law. Limited to the period of your pardon, at any point between January 1, 2014 and January 19, 2025, did you destroy any federal record or tell anyone else to? Under the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Given that you have an unlimited presidential pardon, what is your specific objection that you are making? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. My question was limited to the period of your pardon only. I find your objection unsupported and direct you to answer the question. On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Because you refused to answer, citing a privilege that is unsupported because of your pardon, and after being denied to do so, this committee has scheduled a vote next week on arrest on arrest. You will be given a resolution certifying your contempt. I think we have another question or two from Senator Lankford. Mr. Chairman, really this is a question for you, and it's a question to try to figure out how do we get a good answer on this? Because clearly Dr. Fauci's attorneys are saying that he has a Fifth Amendment right. We've also subpoenaed him to be able to compel his testimony to be able to be here. I happen to be in the committee as we're also dealing with Lois Lerner. came and testified gave an opening statement and then took the Fifth Amendment the committee then held her in contempt for that saying you can't do both you can't both testify and say I'm not gonna answer questions so the parliamentary question that I think we've got to be able to deal with is is this consistent with Lois Lerner what she also did when she came before Congress gave an opening statement testimony so made a statement and then refused to answer questions are we dealing with the same issue here where someone is make you can't make a statement and say I'm not gonna make statements at the same time I think it's a very good question I think that's something all of us will examine over the next week we're gonna have a vote next week on contempt I think there's another legal question that the courts may have to decide upon and that is whether or not a presidential pardon that offers you complete immunity that you can still claim that you need protection from immunity when you've been protected because dr. Fauci isn't liable for anything as long as he tells the truth even if he admits that he destroyed records on a routine basis his assistant said she destroyed a ton of emails I think was a routine thing I think he destroyed throughout his career there are probably thousands of emails even if he did that as long as he answered truthfully yes I did I didn't think that was important I I made a mistake you can't be prosecuted for many of the things are outside the statute of limitations as well all he had to do today if he wanted to be honest as long as he was honest even about committing a crime he would have no jeopardy but I think the pardon does has given him more immunity than most people would ever get if you offer a witness immunity in exchange for testimony he has blanket immunity the president gave him blanket immunity for virtually anything he could have possibly done you know while at NIH so I think we all have to individually answer this question we welcome you to be part of helping us with this question thank you Mr Chairman today will be the capstone to Anthony Fauci's 40 years of abuse of power at NIH in the end must imagine Fauci believes he got away with it but still late at night even the guilty must become anxious rerunning the scenarios through his mind wondering latching on to lingering doubts and worrying did his actions lead to the largest man-made pledge given to Fauci for the suivest sentence on a mandatory leg in human history. Are the millions dead the result of his experiments or experiments that he approved that increased the pathogenicity of deadly viruses? History will judge, but the facts as we now know them paint a sordid tale of dishonesty, misjudgment, and ultimately the hubris the likes of which the world has rarely seen. If everyone will remain seated for a few minutes, we're going to let Dr. Fauci exit. Thank you.

Summary: The committee will now come to order. One million Americans died from COVID-19. Some estimate as many as 15 million people died worldwide from COVID-19. Publicly, Anthony Fauci promoted the theory that the virus arose naturally, while privately he was well aware of a mountain of evidence suggesting the virus originated in the lab. The American people deserve answers. The American people deserve to know why dangerous research was funded by NIAID in a totali…