Dr. Anthony Fauci appeared in Washington on Jan. 8.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said a surprising number of times that he could not recall when he was asked questions about the COVID-19 pandemic in a close-door session with a Congressional committee, top lawmakers said on Jan. 8.
“There may be over 100 or so, so far, ‘I don’t recall’, ‘I don’t remember’ answers,” Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) told reporters on Capitol Hill after Dr. Fauci answered questions for seven hours.
Dr. Fauci, the longtime head of the U.S. National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) until around the end of 2022, was testifying to the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. He was speaking in the private session under oath for the first time since he left office. The last time he spoke under oath, he also said he didn’t recall in response to a number of questions. Dr. Fauci was accompanied by two personal lawyers and two government lawyers.
Lawmakers were expected to ask about a range of topics, including Dr. Fauci’s shift on mask mandates and his support for lockdowns, but ended up mainly focusing on grants and oversight of research, Republicans on the subcommittee said.
“We’re doing a lot of conversation about the process of research, of grants, oversight, if you will, of regulations, and possible solutions for a better path going forward,” Dr. Wenstrup said.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) said that lawmakers were going through the grants process with Dr. Fauci and trying to figure out whether any U.S. money helped fund the creation of COVID-19. She said that Democrats did ask Dr. Fauci briefly about his involvement with a paper that claimed COVID-19 could not have come from a laboratory, even though the paper did not show that, and that Republicans might delve into that later.
Part of the private session drilled down on how Dr. Fauci defines gain-of-function, which is known to many scientists as enhancing the pathogenesis or transmissibility of a virus or pathogen.
By Zachary Stieber and Joseph Lord
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