Ahead of Hearing with Dr. Fauci, Select Subcommittee Democrats Release New Report Debunking Extreme Republican Claims in Failed COVID Origins Probe

Washington, D.C. (June 3, 2024)—Today, Rep. Raul Ruiz, M.D., Ranking Member of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, released a new staff report ahead of the Select Subcommittee’s hearing with Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Today’s staff report is based on a transcribed interview with Dr. Fauci, as well as more than a dozen transcribed interviews with other current and former federal officials and scientists.

“Under the guise of investigating the pandemic’s origins, House Republicans have abdicated their responsibility to objectively examine how COVID-19 came to be—and instead weaponized concerns about a lab-related origin to fuel sentiment against our nation’s scientists and public health officials for partisan gain.  After fifteen months, the Select Subcommittee still does not possess a shred of evidence to substantiate these extreme allegations that Republicans have levied against Dr. Fauci for nearly four years,” said Ranking Member Ruiz.

Select Subcommittee Republicans have accused Dr. Fauci of funding research through the EcoHealth Alliance grant that caused the COVID-19 pandemic; lying about gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China; and orchestrating a campaign to suppress the lab leak theory.  But those allegations are not supported by any evidence collected by the Select Subcommittee. 

Internal documents and testimony provided to the Select Subcommittee over the past fifteen months suggest that:

• Dr. Fauci was not aware of NIAID’s grant to EcoHealth Alliance or the grant’s subaward to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) until after the COVID-19 outbreak, and there is no evidence that the viruses studied under that grant caused the COVID-19 pandemic.
  
• Dr. Fauci’s prior Senate testimony explicitly referred to the regulatory definition of the term “gain-of-function,” rather than to an informal usage of the term, and his testimony was accurate. 
   
• Dr. Fauci did not orchestrate the “Proximal Origin” paper, he did not bribe its authors, and he did not direct NIAID staff to manipulate public media coverage regarding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Instead of objectively examining the pathways by which the novel coronavirus could have emerged, Select Subcommittee Republicans have spent the 118th Congress probing federally funded research in an effort to substantiate their extreme allegations baselessly linking Dr. Fauci to the pandemic’s origins.

Findings from today’s staff report highlight the damage that Republicans’ unsubstantiated claims have had on public health officials, their families, and our nation’s trust in public health.

Click here to read the full report.