House Republicans will be interviewing former White House COVID-19 policy adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci in an intense closed-door session on Monday and Tuesday.
Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) told the Washington Examiner that the majority intends to “shed light on topics that no Committee, Member, nor news outlet has ever inquired about before.”
Wenstrup says subcommittee staff have prepared over 200 pages of questions and nearly 100 exhibits of evidence related to Fauci’s involvement in the development of COVID-19 policy.
“Americans demand and deserve explanations for any pandemic-era failures,” Wenstrup said. “This is an opportunity for Dr. Fauci to explain his COVID-19 policy positions.”
Monday and Tuesday mark Fauci’s first political appearance since his retirement from his position as the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases in December 2022. Fauci served as NIAID director since 1987 after he began his medical career at the agency in 1968.
Wenstrup previously told the Washington Examiner that the questions toward the former adviser to both Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden will go over a myriad of topics, ranging from mask mandate policies to the alleged suppression of the lab leak theory of the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Republican members of the committee published a report in August detailing the involvement of Fauci in the drafting of an influential scientific paper discrediting the hypothesis that the virus originated from an incident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The message history between the authors of the paper “Proximal Origins of SARS-CoV-2” demonstrates that there was a significant change of heart after the team of scientists spoke with top National Institutes of Health officials, including Fauci and former NIH Director Francis Collins.
Ranking member Raul Ruiz (D-CA) told the Washington Examiner that the majority members are “politicizing the greatest public health crisis of our time for their own partisan gain” by bringing in Fauci for questioning.
“Under the guise of determining the pandemic’s origins, Select Subcommittee Republicans have relied on conjecture to build their extreme, conspiratorial narrative despite nearly half a million pages of documents and dozens of hours of testimony provided to the committee in no way showing a cover-up of COVID-19’s origins nor a suppression of the lab leak theory on his part,” Ruiz said.
Wenstrup, however, sees Fauci’s perspective on the origins of the virus and other aspects of the pandemic as essential in moving forward.
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“His forthcoming, honest, and transparent testimony over the next two days is critical for improving our nation’s future public health,” Wenstrup said.
In addition to the closed-door transcribed interview, Fauci has agreed to a public hearing before the subcommittee, which is to be scheduled at a later date.
