Fauci misled Congress when he denied the NIH funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan.
By: Mike Gallagher, WSJ
The Biden administration unlawfully hid a 2022 report revealing that seven U.S. service members likely contracted Covid-19 at the World Military Games in Wuhan, China, in October 2019—months before the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic in March 2020, the Washington Free Beacon reported last week. In February, researchers at the infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology announced the discovery of a new bat coronavirus that closely resembles Covid. Markets dipped.
Americans are right to be concerned. After the 2020 pandemic, our scientific elite—personified by Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022—should have come clean about the pandemic’s laboratory origin, admitted the Wuhan lab’s risky gain-of-function research was a giant mistake that cost millions of lives, canceled funding and partnerships with China, and rallied global health authorities to drive higher safety standards and a worldwide ban on suicidal virus experimentation.
None of that happened. Instead, the Chinese Communist Party was permitted to bleach the crime scene, as Dr. Fauci—along with a cabal of Wuhan Institute collaborators and National Institutes of Health grantees—whitewashed history by insisting for years that the most likely origin of the virus was natural. Dr. Fauci reiterated this claim in a paper published this past November.
Millions dead, billions in economic value lost, and the West can claim zero lessons learned. Dr. Fauci and his supporters, with help from Joe Biden and blue-state Covid tyrants, so sabotaged Americans’ faith in public health and academic and civic institutions that we are less prepared to confront the next virus than the last one.
Only once we know in detail what happened and who was at fault can we take steps to prevent the next crisis, restore faith in American institutions, and hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable. Here’s a plan for doing so.
President Trump should declassify all intelligence on Covid’s origin. In 2023 Congress voted unanimously to require that Mr. Biden declassify “any and all” relevant intelligence surrounding Covid’s origins. Mr. Biden promptly flouted both the intention and the letter of the law by publishing a semiredacted 10-page report that read more like a summary of publicly available information than a comprehensive accounting of what our intelligence agencies knew about this virus.
Western intelligence agencies initially bowed to political pressure and rejected the theory that Covid emerged from the Wuhan lab. They now favor that view, and most Americans agree. But the details matter. Canadian molecular biologist Alina Chan, who refused to discredit the lab-leak theory even amid Chinese propaganda and Dr. Fauci’s obfuscations, would be a perfect candidate to lead a commission to develop laboratory safety standards for working with dangerous pathogens. Lab leaks are shockingly common. In 2004 there were at least two documented leaks of the SARS virus from a top Beijing lab. We can’t afford to allow scientists working with dangerous pathogens in major population centers to police themselves.
Mr. Trump should empower agency heads to drive this accountability push. Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe has taken the lead in reassessing the origins of the pandemic, but a full-scale investigation should involve multiple departments. Attorney General Pam Bondi should issue subpoenas for communications between Dr. Fauci, Francis Collins, Ralph Baric, Peter Daszak, the EcoHealth Alliance, the authors of the disgraced “proximal origin” article that claimed to disprove the lab-leak theory, and others in Dr. Fauci’s circle who helped hide the truth or worked to censor opposing hypotheses. Any institution that employs these misinformation merchants should be cut off from federal grants.
In 2014 the U.S. paused federal funding for gain-of-function research over concerns about safety risks. The moratorium was lifted in 2017, but Mr. Trump should immediately reimpose it. Secretary of State Marco Rubio should also investigate which international bodies or agreements—perhaps the U.S.-China Agreement on Cooperation in Science and Technology—enabled the lab leak and its coverup.
Finally, Mr. Trump should establish a multination tribunal, akin to the International Criminal Court but with actual teeth, to investigate the origins of the virus, examining evidence of negligence or intentional misconduct and determining the culpability of key people and institutions.
The American elite’s feckless response to Covid’s origin is fertilizer for the next crisis—which we shouldn’t assume will be limited to public health. The Chinese Communist Party has reason to believe that even when it causes a global calamity, American CEOs will still jet to Beijing to glad-hand with Politburo members, American university administrators will continue to accept money from Chinese sources, and international governance bodies like the World Health Organization will turn a blind eye. If there are no consequences for a pandemic that killed millions, who will raise a fuss over Chinese incursions into Taiwan?
The American media and scientific elite have given us a few mealy-mouthed half-apologies. They want us to move on. We should refuse. Our friends and loved ones died alone and afraid in hospitals. Our children were locked out of schools. Our churches were closed. Institutional trust can’t be restored without accountability.
The Biden administration resisted accountability. While shuffling out of the White House, Mr. Biden took the extraordinary step of issuing Dr. Fauci a pardon, even though he hadn’t been charged with a crime. Congress should investigate this disgraceful action—which tacitly admitted Mr. Fauci’s wrongdoing—and call Mr. Fauci to testify before the body once again given he can no longer invoke the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
At best, Dr. Fauci misled Congress when he insisted that the NIH wasn’t funding gain-of-function research in the Wuhan lab. At worst, that research sparked the pandemic with U.S. funding. These scientists weren’t merely wrong; they locked shields to hide what we now know to be the truth. Those who advocated censorship of the lab-leak hypothesis should never see another federal dollar.
The question of how this pandemic began remains the most important in the world. The Trump administration can deliver answers, hold people accountable, and ensure the world learns from its mistakes to prevent a future crisis.