Ex-Biden aide tells Congress there’s growing evidence COVID DID leak from lab

Top scientific advisers told Congress on Wednesday that there is mounting evidence that COVID leaked from the Wuhan lab and accused Dr. Anthony Fauci of trying to cover up the claims because they did not fit his narrative.

Experts, including a former Biden staffer and Donald Trump’s CDC director, testified before the House subcommittee investigating COVID that taxpayer-funded show profit likely caused the virus that came from the facility. China.

Dr. Jamie Metzl, a self-identified Democrat who worked for President Biden when he was in the Senate, said he favored the lab leak theory because “the Chinese government has done everything in its power.” to obstruct investigations.

Republican Rep. Jim Jordan also criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci for “trying to cover his ass” over claims of lab leaks, and Trump’s CDC director Robert Redfield claimed Biden’s COVID adviser ignored his concerns because “they wanted a unique narrative and I had a different point of view.

It follows the release of the Department of Energy’s explosive report two weeks ago that the virus, responsible for years of lockdowns and restrictions, likely leaked from the lab.

FBI Director Christopher Wray confirmed that his agency believed the same.

The House subcommittee investigating the origins of Covid-19 opened its first hearing with top scientific experts who said they believed the virus likely leaked from a lab, including a ‘lifelong Democrat’ and former member of the Biden staff.

“This is the highest paid guy in our government who gets paid all kinds of money to tell us things that weren’t accurate,” Jordan said.

‘US tax dollars went to a lab in China, a lab that wasn’t up to code, a lab that was doing gain-of-function research, and that’s where this thing definitely came from and Dr Fauci could not allow that news to get out. .’

Metzl said China had an “incentive” to find the animal where Covid-19 had originated while pushing the theory of animal-to-human transmission, but had not done so.

“Since the Chinese government has every incentive to find an intermediary host, it is highly significant that it has not been found,” Metzl said. “I think it’s very telling after three years that we haven’t found it.”

Dr. Paul Auwaerter, an infectious disease expert invited by Democrats to the committee, noted that it took years to find the intermediate hosts after the SARS and MERS outbreaks.

“There will be no doubt that a research-related origin remains a very serious possibility, if not an outright probability. There is no smoking gun that includes a laboratory origin hypothesis. but the growing body and circumstantial evidence suggest that the weapon is, at least, warm to the touch,” Metzl said.

Rep. Brad Wenstrup, chair of the committee, said there was no ‘smoking gun’ to prove the virus had spilled outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and also said there was ‘no evidence that covid evolved from an animal’. any.

He highlighted the lack of security practices at the WIV, as Dr. Robert Redfield said that “certainly” the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of State, the US Agency for International Development, and the Department of Defense were funding the show gain. investigation.

Redfield called for a moratorium on gain-of-function research until there is a “consensus” on its benefit to society.

Redfield said there was evidence of the virus as early as September 2019 and declared three now-declassified ‘highly irregular’ findings pointing to the lab leak theory: he said researchers removed footage, changed command and control of the WIV from civilian to the military and allowed a contractor to redo the ventilation in the lab, which Redfield called “really eye-opening.”

Representative James Comer, Chairman of the Oversight Committee, questioned the four witnesses about the Proximal Origins article from early 2020.

“Yes or no, was there science available to make such an unequivocal statement against the possibility of a lab so early in February?” asked the Kentucky Republican.

Three witnesses said no, Democratic witness Auwaerter said he did not have “sufficient” evidence to say.

Trump’s CDC director Robert Redfield claimed that Biden’s COVID adviser ignored his concerns because “they wanted a single narrative and I had a different point of view.”

Republican Rep. Jim Jordan also criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci for “trying to cover his ass” over the lab leak claims. “This is the highest paid guy in our government who gets paid all kinds of money to tell us things that weren’t accurate,” Jordan said.

Referring to the role of Fauci and NIH Director Francis Collins in approving the gain-of-function research, Comer said the pair “got caught with their hands in the cookie jar.” They were caught uploading a virus in an unsecured Chinese lab.

“They were so worried about whether or not they could do it that they didn’t stop to think about whether they should do it,” Comer said.

Rep. Raúl Ruiz, D-Calif., warned his fellow Republicans not to “vilify” public health experts like Fauci with “conspiracy allegations.”

‘It seems the minds across the hall are made up [on origins],’ he said.

Redfield said that, as CDC director, he was left out of high-level talks after he told Dr. Anthony Fauci in early 2020 that he did not believe natural contagion was “scientifically plausible.”

Now reports have surfaced that Dr. Anthony Fauci, longtime former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, commissioned a scientific paper early in the pandemic, known as the proximal source paper, casting doubt on the idea of that Covid-19 came from a laboratory.

Referring to the closely-sourced paper, Redfield said: ‘It’s antithetical to science. Science has debate and they crushed the debate.

The document was released days after Fauci was warned in emails about the lab’s possible origin. Fauci did not reveal that he was involved in the commission of the document when he stood before a White House press briefing and cited it as evidence to rule out the origin of the lab.

Fauci in November testifying at a social media court case he said he did not recall Redfield calling him in mid-January 2020 to inform him of the potential for virus manipulation.

Republican Rep. John Joyce, R-Pennsylvania, said the House will vote on declassifying the FBI and Energy Department findings that led them to announce that the coronavirus likely originated in a laboratory. He asked how important it is to declassify the information.

On the origin of the virus, Redfield said: “I don’t think the answers will come from the scientific community.” I think it will come from the intelligence community.

“I think the declassification is very important,” Redfield added. “There are some method and sourcing issues that they will have to wrestle with,” he added.

Redfield said Fauci took the naturally occurring position because “that’s what happened with SARS and MERs,” but those viruses emerged before 2012 when the US was not involved in gain-of-function research.

Redfield said he tried to explain to Fauci that the virus was much more adapted to person-to-person transmission than SARS and MERS. “I immediately said, ‘Wait a second, this is unnatural.'”

Democrats focused much of their time on a 2014 book by witness Nicholas Wade, a former science editor for the New York Times and Nature and Science magazines.

Democrats pointed out that the book, “A Troublesome Inheritance,” which focuses on biological racial differences, has been cited by white supremacists.

“I am absolutely offended that he has the opportunity to take this platform and add something of significance to it,” said Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md.

I am also sorry that Mr. Mfume did not like my book. I’m not a racist,’ Wade said.

Wade noted that the media had been ‘used’ to establish natural origin as the dominant theory.

“The thing that bothered me the most was being called a racist by the Baltimore Sun for saying this came from a lab,” Redfield recalled.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Md., blamed former President Trump, who at the start of the pandemic praised Chinese President Xi and his transparency around the virus.

It tore into “Donald Trump’s fawning, dazzled, fawning embrace of everything the Chinese government was telling you in 2020.”

“I will gladly offer much more to any colleague who thinks this in any way acquits the last administration for telling Americans that COVID would magically disappear at Easter time.”

Three high-profile congressional committees — Oversight, the Judiciary, and Energy and Commerce — have opened their own investigations into the origins of Covid-19 and the government’s response to the pandemic.

Fauci himself, who retired late last year, has yet to be called to testify, in part due to the competing jurisdictions of each committee’s investigation.