BRUTAL: Ron Johnson Confronts Doctor He Claims 'Engaged In A Cover-Up' With Fauci

3 months ago

At today's Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) grilled witness about the lab-leak theory and how the government approached it.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you, Senator Johnson.

00:03You're recognized for your questions.

00:04Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

00:05I want to thank you and the Ranking Member for holding this very important hearing.

00:09We need a lot more of these.

00:11I want to thank all the witnesses for your very detailed testimony.

00:14And I'd encourage anybody viewing this hearing to go online and read the detailed testimony.

00:20I think you'll find it very difficult to not come away after reading that, that we may

00:25not have a smoking gun, but the circumstantial evidence is strong that this was a man-made

00:31virus and that it was probably leaked from a lab.

00:34Probably at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

00:40One thing that's convinced me very early on, I've been convinced this quite some time,

00:43is just the cover-up.

00:44I mean, the fact that the Chinese took down data sets, so all of a sudden you couldn't

00:49find a smoking gun because it no longer exists, and we'll probably never know that.

00:53But also the cover-up here within the U.S. government.

00:57I've been doing oversight on our response to COVID, which, by the way, was a miserable

01:02failure.

01:03We're 4% of the world's population.

01:04We apparently experienced 16% of the deaths, supposedly the most modern medical system

01:10in the world.

01:11That's a miserable failure.

01:13And so we need to do a lot of oversight, not just on the origin, which is an important

01:17aspect of this, but on everything, okay?

01:23If we're serious about this, by the way, we've got to start letting subpoenas start

01:26flying.

01:27I'll do this one more time.

01:28I've done this multiple times.

01:29This is the 50 final pages of Fauci's emails.

01:33By the way, the only reason we realize that Fauci was engaged in a cover-up with Dr. Gary

01:39is the fact that we had to FOIA these.

01:41They didn't turn these over, which they should have.

01:43We had to FOIA them.

01:44We had to go to court.

01:47Our staff has taken the 4,000 pages that we got that were redacted, narrowed those down

01:52to 400 pages, and they allowed us to look at these things unredacted in a reading room.

01:57350 pages, but not the final 50.

02:02In terms of the cover-up, my guess is the smoking gun exists somewhere under these heavy

02:11redactions.

02:12So my suggestion, actually, my plea to the chairman is to issue a subpoena to get these

02:20final 50 pages, then maybe we'll get a full extent of the extensive cover-up.

02:25Dr. Gary, I don't know, have you ever used the word conspiracy theory when it relates

02:31to the lab leak?

02:32Have you ever accused people who put that thing forward that they're a bunch of conspiracy

02:38theorists?

02:39Not in my public.

02:40Okay, well, I'll tell you who has.

02:42It was the editor-in-chief of Nature magazine that published the proximal origin.

02:47And he said, talking about your study, your cover-up, great work.

02:52We'll put conspiracy theories about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 to rest.

02:58Will you at least admit that people who are raising the possibility of a lab leak were

03:04not conspiracy theorists, that they were a legitimate concern about gain-of-function

03:09research creating this chimeric virus?

03:13Of course, sir.

03:14I mean, that would include us at the very beginning.

03:17That's progress, because, again, an awful lot of people's reputations were ruined by

03:21this cover-up and by the accusations of people being conspiracy theorists.

03:26Dr. Ebright, you know, the purpose of this hearing really is to talk about the danger

03:31of gain-of-function research.

03:33Right now we're about ready to be scaremongered, I think we're already being scaremongered

03:37on H5N1.

03:40Back in late 2011, the world learned of two scientific teams, one in University of Wisconsin-Madison

03:47one in the Netherlands, that had apparently said each of these labs create H5N1 viruses

03:55that had gained the ability to spread through the air between ferrets.

04:00The animal model used to study how flu viruses might behave in humans.

04:05That's pretty darn dangerous stuff, right?

04:07That is primarily what led to the moratorium on gain-of-function, correct?

04:11That is correct.

04:12What possible reason is there to be producing what nature probably couldn't produce?

04:21Why are we doing this?

04:24It's important to emphasize that the research in question has no, zero civilian practical

04:31applications.

04:33Gain-of-function research on potential pandemic pathogens is not used and does not contribute

04:39to the development of vaccines and is not used for and does not contribute to the development

04:45of drugs.

04:46So, again, that rationale for all this research is exactly that.

04:51In case we have to respond to a bioweapon attack, we need a defense mechanism.

05:00That's the reason, for example, the Defense Department has spent $42 million or funded

05:05EcoHealth Alliance for $42 million and USAID for $53 million, correct?

05:10So the current definition is research that is reasonably anticipated to increase either

05:16the transmissibility or the virulence of a potential pandemic pathogen.

05:22That research does not contribute to developing countermeasures against potential pandemic

05:28pathogens.

05:29Again, that's the rationale they used.

05:30The thing they really scared the public on was the 1918 flu pandemic, correct?

05:35Even Anthony Fauci admitted most people who died of the flu pandemic died of pneumonia

05:41because we didn't have antibiotics, correct?

05:44Bacterial pneumonia.

05:45I think one of the things we have to provide oversight is the sabotage of early treatment

05:51using widely available cheap and safe generic drugs.

05:55We didn't do that.

05:56I mean, from my standpoint, the first thing we ought to be doing in any kind of pandemic

05:59is, is there some way to treat this?

06:01And let doctors be doctors.

06:03Let them practice medicine.

06:04Yeah, I'm sure you're familiar with the concept of Miller's Ratchet, correct?

06:08Of what?

06:09Miller's Ratchet.

06:10Okay, well, it's basically what viruses generally do is they'll become more transmissible but

06:18less pathogenic.

06:19Okay?

06:20Because, again, it doesn't do – a virus snuffs itself out.

06:24MERS snuffed itself out.

06:25SARS snuffed itself out.

06:26Except there were a couple lab leaks that produced SARS outbreaks, correct?

06:32So again, my point is, are we making things worse with human intervention?

06:38Producing vaccines that are, that are not sterilizing, that allow variants to be produced

06:43in things like antibody-dependent enhancement.

06:46Again, there's an awful lot of concern that we don't even consider here because we're

06:50on this quest to have a vaccine for everything and produce vaccines for viruses that haven't

06:57even been created yet in a lab.

06:59Again, that's – the question we ought to be asking this committee is, what in the world

07:03are we doing?

07:04What's the rationale for doing this and are we actually causing more harm than good?

07:09With vaccine development, I would disagree.

07:12Vaccines, vaccines in general, do not pose significant harms and offer significant benefits.

07:22With respect to the gain-of-function research, which creates new threats, biological threats

07:27that do not exist currently and might not naturally come into existence in a decade,

07:33a century, or a millennium, that research creates threats.

07:37And those threats are existentially risky threats.

07:41And that research is being conducted without a justifiable rationale.

07:45There is no rationale in terms of development of countermeasures.

07:50Industry develops vaccines and therapeutics against diseases currently in humans, not

07:55against diseases that don't yet exist and need to be made in a lab.

08:00We could use a public debate regarding all things vaccine, the profit motive of it, and

08:05everything else, but that's for another day.

08:08Thank you, Senator Johnson.

08:09Thank you, Marshall.

08:10You're recognized for your questions.

08:11Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

BRUTAL: Ron Johnson Confronts Doctor He Claims 'Engaged In A Cover-Up' With Fauci

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