A sequence of events in early 2020 suggest that Dr. Anthony Fauci and a small group of scientists sought to promote the natural origins theory as a means to avoid public scrutiny of the possibility that COVID-19 had leaked from a lab.
Fauci received several warnings in late Jan. 2020 that prompted him to hold a private teleconference on Feb. 1, 2020. Emails from participants show that during this teleconference, the two main presenters made clear to the teleconference group that they believed it was a real possibility that COVID-19 originated from a lab.
These same presenters were simultaneously completing an article, later known as Proximal Origin, which publicly promoted the Natural Origins theory and dismissed any lab leak theories. Proximal Origin, which would prove to be highly influential, would be viewed more than half a million times and has been extensively used by Fauci and the corporate media in their promotion of the natural origins narrative.
Two days after the teleconference, some of these same scientists, including Fauci, would be invited by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), to assist in the drafting of a response letter to an inquiry made by the Trump White House regarding the virus’s origins.
Fauci’s scientists, who forcefully pushed their natural origins narrative to NASEM, made no mention of their private discussion that the virus likely originated in a lab. But directors at NASEM chose instead to disregard their input in their formal response to the White House.
Despite this setback, Fauci and his scientists would continue to aggressively push the natural origins narrative for the next 18 months.
A High-Risk Proposal
In 2018, EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak, a long-standing collaborator of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, drew up a blueprint for creating a COVID-like virus in the lab as part of a funding proposal submitted to the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program.
The proposal detailed how Daszak and a group of scientists under his direction planned to insert a furin cleavage site into coronaviruses to make them more transmissible to humans.
By Jeff Carlson and Hans Mahncke
