Former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci is grilled on the origins of COVID-19, and a jury is selected in Hunter Biden's federal gun case.
Fauci defends himself against Republican attacks over COVID origins
In his first public testimony since he retired from the federal government in December 2022, Dr. Anthony Fauci on Monday defended himself against Republican accusations that he had a hand in unleashing the COVID-19 virus four years ago, and tried to cover up the possibility that it escaped from a Chinese lab.
Testifying before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Fauci, who headed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 38 years, said that, in a conference call in early 2020, he never tried to steer scientists toward a specific conclusion.
He also read a Feb. 1, 2020, email in which he urged Dr. Jeremy Farrar, then the director of Wellcome, a health-focused charitable foundation based in London, to assemble a group of evolutionary biologists to examine data to determine if there was any validity to Farrar’s concerns that COVID-19 might have originated in a lab, and then report their findings to authorities.
“It is inconceivable that anyone who reads this email could conclude that I was trying to cover up the possibility of a lab leak,” Fauci said. “I have always kept an open mind to the different possibilities.”
There is no consensus within the U.S. government about how the virus began.
While the Energy Department and FBI support the lab-leak theory, four agencies and the National Intelligence Council have concluded with low confidence that COVID-19 likely emerged after being transmitted from an animal to a human, and two other agencies have not reached a determination one way or the other.
For years, congressional Republicans have suggested that research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China funded by the National Institutes of Health, for which Fauci worked, may have helped create the COVID-19 virus.
Fauci said there was no way NIH’s funding could have yielded COVID-19 because the viruses being studied under a government grant “were phylogenetically so far removed from SARS-CoV-2 that it is molecularly impossible for those viruses to have evolved.”
In addition, he said the research did not involve the regulatory and operative definition of “gain of function” — the practice of enhancing a virus in a lab to study its potential impact in the real world. Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the committee, said some Republicans were using a broader definition of the term, one that would also include the manufacture of flu vaccines.
Democrats on the subcommittee accused their GOP colleagues of a politically motivated “character assassination” of Fauci to distract from former President Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic.
“They're treating you, Dr. Fauci, like a convicted felon. Actually, you probably wish they were treating you like a convicted felon. They treat convicted felons with love and admiration,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a reference to Trump being found guilty last week in New York of falsifying business records.
During one heated exchange, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right critic of Fauci, was reprimanded for refusing to refer to him as "Dr. Fauci."
Greene accused Fauci of "making up guidelines" about social distancing and masking children, adding: "Do you think that's appropriate? Do the American people deserve to be abused like that, Mr. Fauci? Because you're not 'doctor,' you're 'Mr. Fauci' in my few minutes (of questioning)."
As Fauci started to answer her question, she continued ranting, saying, "Nah, I don't need your answer."
Raskin objected to her line of questioning, asking the panel's chairman: "In terms of the rules of decorum, are we allowed to deny that a doctor is a doctor just because we don't want him to be a doctor?"
"Yes, because in my time, that man does not deserve to have a license," Greene interjected. "As a matter of fact, it should be revoked, and he belongs in prison."
Wenstrup conceded that Greene "should recognize the doctor as a doctor."
Ruiz said the Republicans’ investigation has produced no evidence supporting their claims against Fauci and accused GOP lawmakers of not being focused on conclusively determining the origin of COVID-19 so that the United States may prevent or be better prepared for a future pandemic.
“The Chinese Communist Party has blocked access to important information that could help confirm the origin of the virus,” said Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla. “This committee should be doing more to fight for those answers, but instead has wasted significant time and taxpayer money fueling conspiracy theories and ignoring the importance of preparing for the next deadly pandemic.”
Jury seated in Hunter Biden's federal gun case; opening statements to begin Tuesday
A jury of 12 individuals plus four alternates were seated Monday in the first day of jury selection in Hunter Biden's federal gun case. Opening statements are set to begin on Tuesday.
The case is a historic first for the child of a sitting U.S. president and comes as his father, President Joe Biden, is in the midst of a tough reelection battle.
The president issued a rare statement about his son's case as the proceedings got underway hailing Hunter Biden's "resilience in the face of adversity and the strength he has brought to his recovery.
"I am the President, but I am also a Dad. Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today," President Biden said in a statement Monday morning, later adding: "A lot of families have loved ones who have overcome addiction and know what we mean."
"As the President, I don’t and won’t comment on pending federal cases, but as a Dad, I have boundless love for my son, confidence in him, and respect for his strength," he continued. "Our family has been through a lot together, and Jill and I are going to continue to be there for Hunter and our family with our love and support."
Hunter Biden, who spent the weekend with his parents, has been charged in Delaware with three felonies stemming from a 2018 firearm purchase when he was, according to his memoir, in the throes of a crack addiction. He has been accused of lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application used to screen firearms applicants when he said he was not a drug user, and illegally having the gun for 11 days.
He has pleaded not guilty and has argued he's being unfairly targeted by the Justice Department, after Republicans decried the now-defunct deal as special treatment for the Democratic president's son.
More than 65 prospective jurors who were questioned and 29 had been dismissed by late afternoon. One who was sent home said she didn’t know whether she could be impartial because of the opinion she had formed about Hunter Biden based on media reports.
“It’s not a good one,” she replied when an attorney asked her opinion.
The case is going to trial following the collapse of a plea deal that would have avoided the spectacle of a trial so close to the 2024 election. He has pleaded not guilty and has argued he's being unfairly targeted by the Justice Department, after Republicans decried the now-defunct plea deal as special treatment for the Democratic president's son.
The proceedings are unfolding just days after Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, was convicted of 34 felonies in New York City. A jury found the former president guilty of a scheme to cover up a hush money payment to a porn actor to fend off damage to his 2016 presidential campaign. The two criminal cases are unrelated, but their proximity underscores how the criminal courts have taken center stage during the 2024 campaign.
The case against Hunter Biden stems from a period when, by his own public admission, he was addicted to crack. His descent into drugs and alcohol followed the 2015 death of his brother, Beau Biden, from cancer. He bought and owned a gun for 11 days in October 2018 and indicated on the gun purchase form that he was not using drugs.
Defense attorneys have suggested they may argue that Hunter Biden didn’t see himself as an addict when prosecutors say he checked “no” to the question on the form. They will also attack the credibility of the gun store owner.
If convicted, Hunter Biden faces up to 25 years in prison, though first-time offenders generally do not get anywhere near the maximum, and it's unclear whether the judge would give him time behind bars.