Emails: Fauci Was Warned That Covid Was Likely "Engineered" at Wuhan Lab, But Covered It Up

I don't see how he avoids prison.

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease head Dr. Anthony Fauci and several other top scientists were warned that COVID-19 could have been created by gain-of-function research in early 2020, according to email transcriptions released Tuesday by Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Two scientists, Michael Farzan of the Scripps Research Institute and Robert Garry of Tulane University, noted properties of the virus that they believed pointed to enhanced transmissibility stemming from gain-of-function research.

The opinions of both men were provided to Fauci, then-National Institutes of Health head Francis Collins, and then-NIH Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak in an email from researcher Jeremy Farrar sent on Jan. 31, 2020. The existence of the emails was first revealed by Buzzfeed News in June 2021, but they were released with significant redactions. Due to classification rules, the emails could only be viewed by the Republican committee members and staff, who could then take notes and transcriptions in a classified setting.

BREAKING

We've released never before seen emails showing Dr. Fauci may have concealed information about #COVID19 originating from the Wuhan lab & intentionally downplayed the lab leak theory. @RepJamesComer & @Jim_Jordan want Fauci under oath. Time for answers. 1/2👇 pic.twitter.com/p8aIBJ3nom

-- Oversight Committee Republicans (@GOPoversight) January 11, 2022

Farzan was "bothered by" SARS-CoV-2's furin cleavage site, which he viewed as "highly unlikely" to have been created in "an event outside the lab," according to the transcriptions. The existence of a furin cleavage site, which enables the virus to become more transmissible, has been pointed to by several proponents of the lab leak theory, since the two closest known relatives of SARS-CoV-2, RaTG13 and BANAL-236, do not have the site.

Farzan claimed that a likely scenario for the creation of the furin cleavage site was the "passage [of] SARS -live CoVs in tissue culture on human cell lines (under BSL-2) for an extended period of time."

In other words, gain-of-function research on humanized mice.

Garry noted the similarities between SARS-CoV-2 and RaTG13, then the closest known relative to SARS-CoV-2, which was discovered in a cave in Yunnan Province in 2013. The protein sequence would "all have to be added at the exact same time to gain" the enhanced transmissibility, he wrote, adding, "I just can't figure out how this gets accomplished in nature."

"Of course, in the lab it would be easy to generate" the missing protein sequence that separates SARS-CoV-2 from RaTG13, Garry noted.

Garry later downplayed the possibility of the lab leak hypothesis, telling the Daily Caller News Foundation in June 2021 that there was no evidence to support the theory.

...

Fauci, Collins, and Tabak would also go on to blast the lab leak hypothesis as a "very destructive conspiracy" theory, after Fox News' Bret Baier reported on concerns within the U.S. government that COVID-19 originated at WIV. While Collins looked for ways to "put down" the lab leak hypothesis, Fauci derided it as "a shiny object that will go away in times [sic]."

Fauci testified to the Senate in May 2021 that NIH did not fund gain-of-function research at WIV at all, despite the sub-grant to EcoHealth Alliance. Tabak was forced to correct that testimony in October 2021, informing Oversight Committee Ranking Member James Comer of Kentucky that EcoHealth had failed to notify the agency about its research activities and their results.

Although the scientists were warned of the likelihood that covid was engineered in a lab, they went on to write a paper -- likely at Collins' and Fauci's insistence -- that completely suppressed any mention a laboratory creation as a possible origin for the virus.

"It was on this conference call that Drs. Fauci and Collins were first warned that COVID-19 may have leaked from the WIV and, further, may have been intentionally genetically manipulated," the Republicans' letter said.

The congressmen said that "it is unclear if either Dr. Fauci or Dr. Collins ever passed these warnings along to other government officials or if they simply ignored them."

The letter said other scientists participated in the call, four of whom wrote a paper titled, "The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2" that they sent to Fauci and Collins three days after the call. The article did not argue that the virus originated in the lab.

The Republicans are now questioning whether the lab leak theory was dropped due to influence from Fauci and/or Collins.

"It is unclear what, if any, new evidence was presented or if the underlying science changed in that short period of time, but after speaking with Drs. Fauci and Collins, the authors abandoned their belief COVID-19 was the result of a laboratory leak," Comer and Jordan said, adding that they do not know whether Fauci or Collins edited the paper before it was published in Nature Medicine.

Project Veritas also released some documents from the military think-tank DARPA indicating that Wuhan was engaging in gain-of-function research.

The documents in question stem from a report at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as DARPA, which were hidden in a top secret shared drive.

DARPA is an agency under the U.S. Department of Defense in charge of facilitating research in technology with potential military applications.

Project Veritas has obtained a separate report to the Inspector General of the Department of Defense written by U.S. Marine Corp Major, Joseph Murphy, a former DARPA Fellow.

The report states that EcoHealth Alliance approached DARPA in March 2018, seeking funding to conduct gain of function research of bat borne coronaviruses. The proposal, named Project Defuse, was rejected by DARPA over safety concerns and the notion that it violates the basis gain of function research moratorium.

According to the documents, NIAID, under the direction of Dr. Fauci, went ahead with the research in Wuhan, China and at several sites across the U.S.

Dr. Fauci has repeatedly maintained, under oath, that the NIH and NAIAD have not been involved in gain of function research with the EcoHealth Alliance program. But according to the documents obtained by Project Veritas which outline why EcoHealth Alliance's proposal was rejected, DARPA certainly classified the research as gain of function.

"The proposal does not mention or assess potential risks of Gain of Function (GoF) research," a direct quote from the DARPA rejection letter.

In other words, the research being done is GoF but EcoHealth is not being frank about that and is not being open about the potential risks of the research.

Like releasing a plague upon the world. As a for-instance.

Below, neoliberal hyperpartisan drip Ryan Grim -- a perfectly-named dour apparatchik for the leftwing establishment-- is forced to admit his precious leftwing bureaucratic Deep State is lying and his precious Democrats are covering it up. Worth the watch.

posted by Ace at 01:48 PM

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