Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) floated the idea that Dr. Fauci might not only be responsible for the global COVID-19 pandemic, but also for “cover[ing] up” the evidence.
Sen. Paul appeared on Fox and Friends and revealed that the NIH (National Institutes of Health) had funded EcoHealth Alliance—a non-governmental research organization—to investigate whether the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China did anything “inappropriate” in their lab, before suggesting that Big Media darling Dr. Anthony Fauci could be responsible for the worldwide COVID pandemic.
“THE PERSON THEY HIRED TO INVESTIGATE THE LAB FOR THE WHO PERSPECTIVE IS THE GUY WHO GAVE THE MONEY,” PAUL SAID, ADDING, “SO NIH GAVE THE MONEY TO ECOHEALTH. THE HEAD OF ECOHEALTH – THEY GOT HIM TO INVESTIGATE WHETHER WUHAN WAS DOING ANYTHING INAPPROPRIATE IN THEIR LAB. BUT IF THEY WERE THEN WOULDN’T HE BE CULPABLE?”
“DOESN’T HE HAVE A SELF INTEREST IN SMOOTHING THINGS OVER,” PAUL CONTINUED. “I’M NOT SAYING HE DID COVER THINGS UP BUT YOU WOULDN’T APPOINT SOMEONE WHO IS IN THE LINE OF THE SUPPLY CHAIN OF GIVING THE MONEY TO THEM.”
“ULTIMATELY HERE’S THE RUB. I DON’T KNOW WHETHER IT CAME FROM THE LAB. BUT WHO COULD BE CULPABLE? DR. FAUCI COULD BE CULPABLE FOR THE ENTIRE PANDEMIC!” SAID PAUL.
Here’s the full interview:
Senator Paul doubled down on Twitter, reaffirming his claim that the NIH did in fact fund the Wuhan Lab. He also provided evidence to back up his claim in the form of an admission from Dr. Shi Zhengli, the Chinese lab’s chief scientist.
“YES, DR. FAUCI’S NIH DID FUND THE WUHAN VIROLOGY LAB. HERE’S THE VERBATIM ADMISSION FROM THEIR CHIEF SCIENTIST DR. SHI ZHENGLI,” PAUL TWEETED.
Dr. Paul also quoted MIT biologist Kevin Esvelt who said that “certain techniques that the researchers used seemed to meet the definition of gain-of-function” after reviewing a paper published with funding from Dr. Fauci’s NIH/NIAID.
Dr. Peter Navarro—former Assistant to the President and the Trump White House and Defense Production Act Policy Coordinator during the early months of the pandemic—lists “nine indisputable facts” linking Dr. Fauci to the Wuhan lab in a publication for The National Pulse:
ONE: Fauci used NIH grant money to help fund the Wuhan Virology Lab; and TWO, these American taxpayer funds were funneled to the Wuhan Lab through Peter Daszak and the New York City-based EcoHealth Alliance.
Under the auspices of a nearly $3.7 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) – “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence” – 30 studies have been published since 2014. Over half of these studies count authors from Chinese Communist Party-run scientific organizations, and in 13 cases, the authors come from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
What’s more, the studies themselves describe the grant money as going to both EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak and Shi Zhengli, Director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases.
For example, one study on the “Isolation and Characterization of a Novel Bat Coronavirus” notes that “National Institutes of Health (NIH) provided funding to Peter Daszak and Zheng-Li Shi under grant number NIAID R01AI110964.” There are seven other instances where U.S. taxpayer dollars from the NIH have been described as funding research conducted by Shi Zhengli. (Here, here, here, here, here, here, and, here.)
But there’s more.
THREE, Fauci, together with NIH Director Francis Collins, went behind the back of the Trump White House in December 2017 to overturn a 2014 Obama Administration decision to ban the use of “gain of function” tools to increase the lethality of viruses – Australian journalist Sharri Markson has revealed Fauci used a “low level” White House meeting to fly below the radar.
FOUR, before the pandemic hit, Peter Daszak bragged in a TV interview about how simple it was to use gain of function at the Wuhan lab to make viruses more deadly.
FIVE, Obama’s National Security Council recommended banning gain of function research because of the high risk that a weaponized virus might escape from even the most secure labs; SIX, deadly pathogens have routinely escaped from highest security labs, including a virus that escaped from the Beijing Virology Institute and caused the first SARS virus; and SEVEN, the US State Department warned in 2018 about a lack of safety protocols at the Wuhan lab and the possibility that Wuhan sloppiness could trigger a second SARS outbreak.
EIGHT, Fauci’s NIH helped fund the research of Ralph Barric from the University of North Carolina who used gain of function techniques with China’s infamous “Bat Lady,” Wuhan Lab virologist Shi Zhengli; and NINE, numerous experts have now agree that SARS-COV-2 most likely originated from the Wuhan lab. These experts include Centers for Disease Control Director Dr. Robert Redfield, CNN’s Sanjay Gupta, and Nicholas Wade, who has written what may well turn out to be the definitive case in support of the lab theory.
Jon Fleetwood is Managing Editor for American Faith.
