The White House steered clear of the controversy surrounding Dr. Anthony Fauci’s newly unearthed emails, which show the nation’s top virologist’s behind-the-scenes communications did not always match his public statements on COVID-19.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to comment on the substance of the emails during the briefing on Thursday, though they showed he worked behind the scenes to cast doubt on the theory that the coronavirus originated in a Wuhan, China, laboratory, a hypothesis that he is still unsure of.
“Let me just say on Dr. Fauci and his emails, he’s also spoken to this many, many times over the course of the last few days, and we’ll let him speak for himself, and he’s been an undeniable asset in our country’s pandemic response,” Psaki said. “But it’s obviously not that advantageous for me to relitigate the substance of emails from 17 months ago.”
“We launched, based on the president’s direction, an entire internal review process to use all of the resources across government to get to the bottom of the origins,” she added.
