At last week’s House Select Committee on the Coronavirus, the GOP majority's lawyer Mitchell Benzine questioned Dr. Anthony Fauci about the origins of COVID.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Again, across the dais, both sides of the aisle, a lot of questions on the origins of
00:06COVID and finding out the origins and how that could better lead to both protecting
00:11against spillover and wildlife trade, but also increased biosafety standards.
00:17As you sit here today, is it possible that COVID-19 was the result of a laboratory-related
00:22accident?
00:23Oh, absolutely.
00:24And like I mentioned multiple times, I keep an open mind.
00:27I feel, based on the data that I have seen, that the more likely, not definitive, but
00:33the more likely explanation is a natural spillover from an animal reservoir.
00:38But since there has not been definitive proof one way or the other, we have to keep an open
00:43mind that it could be either.
00:45And based on that answer, I think, is the hypothesis that COVID-19 accidentally leaked
00:51from a lab a conspiracy theory?
00:53No, I mentioned that several times.
00:56Conceptually, the concept of it is not a conspiracy theory.
01:01We've talked a little bit about the proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2, the paper authored by
01:05Dr. Anderson.
01:06It came to two primary conclusions, and I'm quoting, our analysis clearly show that SARS-CoV-2
01:12is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus, and we do not believe that
01:18any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.
01:22Do you disagree with those conclusions?
01:24I think, Mitch, if I'm not mistaken, I don't have the paper in front of me.
01:27I think they also said the possibility of if you passaged it, you could have done that.
01:35And if you passage it, it's in a lab.
01:37So it is, I mean, that could be.
01:40And they dispelled that at the end with the, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based
01:44scenario is plausible.
01:47So I'm just, I'll ask again, is a laboratory-based scenario plausible?
01:52Well, I mean, again, I'm not, I don't want to speak for what they meant in that paper,
01:57but I have said multiple times, I keep an open mind that it could be either a laboratory
02:02leak or it could be what I think the data is leaning towards mostly, which is a natural
02:08occurrence from an animal reservoir.
02:12And this email was brought up too on April 16th, 2020, Dr. Collins wrote to you and said,
02:18wondering if there's something NIH can do to help put down this very destructive conspiracy
02:22referencing the lab leak.
02:24I hope the Nature Medicine article on the genomic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 would settle
02:28this but probably didn't get much visibility.
02:31Anything more we can do.
02:33The next day you were at a White House press conference and cited proximal origin and said
02:39that proximal origin established that COVID-19 quote is totally consistent with a jump of
02:44a species from an animal to human.
02:47Did anyone tell you to cite proximal origin from the White House podium?
02:50No, I was in response, I believe to a question that might've been asked by a reporter, but
02:54I wasn't stimulated to say that at all.
02:58I was responding to a question.
03:00At that time back in April of 2020, was it also your belief that a lab leak was possible?
03:06Yeah, I've always had an open mind about it.
03:09And then I want to correct the record again a little bit on the drafting and publication
03:16of the proximal origin paper.
03:18Did Dr. Anderson send you drafts to review?
03:21He sent drafts, but I'm going to jump ahead of you if I might dribble around.
03:27I did not edit it.
03:28That was mentioned by a few of the congressmen.
03:31I did not edit the paper.
03:33And I appreciate that.
03:34I just wanted to get on the record.
03:38I want to talk about Dr. Morenz and what you wrote in your opening testimony and some of
03:43the answers that you gave today.
03:45And just for clarity, you were, in addition to being unaware of his use of personal email
03:50and potentially intentionally deleting federal records, were you also unaware of his actions
03:56to assist Dr. Daszak and EcoHealth?
04:00I was aware of his friendship.
04:02I was not aware of his attempts to assist him to respond to an NIH inquiry.
04:09So not aware of the editing of press releases or editing of letters?
04:13No, I was not.
04:15On November 11, 2021, Dr. Morenz wrote in an email to Dr. Daszak that he attempted to
04:22discuss the EcoHealth grant with you and you, quote, got upset and told him to have no more
04:27communications with Peter.
04:30Why did you tell Dr. Morenz to no longer communicate with Dr. Daszak?
04:33Because I think it's inappropriate to do what he did.
04:36I mean, and your committee has called him out very definitively about that.
04:41And it was inappropriate to do that.
04:43This is back in 2021.
04:45What did you know about what he was doing then?
04:50I didn't know exactly what he was doing, but I don't think it's inappropriate for people
04:53to be communicating and helping a grantee in a response.
04:57I didn't know exactly what he was doing, but I didn't think it was appropriate.
05:02When did you, you testified to Chairman Griffith, or excuse me, Chairman Comer, that you knew
05:11about the compliance issues later on with EcoHealth?
05:14When did you first become aware?
05:15I became aware during briefings by my staff in preparation for congressional hearings,
05:22well after the fact where the compliance issues actually happened.
05:27I didn't know, as I've mentioned to you in the TI, I didn't even know the grant existed
05:32before the outbreak.
05:35And then finally, when there was this issue about congressional hearings, I needed to
05:39know what is this grant, what are we doing with it, and are there any issues?
05:44That's when they said there was a compliance problem of the fourth year versus the fifth
05:48year progress report.