Fauci Testimony Uncovered 'Drastic' Failures, Republicans Say

A testimony by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former chief medical adviser at the White House, uncovered "drastic" failures within the nation's health systems, Republicans said this week.

On Monday, Fauci, who also previously served as the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), testified in front of the Republican-led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Committee chairman, Representative Brad Wenstrup, issued a statement saying, "Dr. Fauci's testimony today uncovered drastic and systemic failures in America's public health systems."

"While leading the nation's COVID-19 response and influencing public narratives, he simultaneously had no idea what was happening under his own jurisdiction at NIAID. Dr. Fauci signed off on all domestic and foreign research grants without reviewing the proposals and admitted that he was unaware if NIAID conducted oversight of the laboratories they fund," Wenstrup said.

Newsweek reached out to Wenstrup's office via email for further comment.

Over the past several months, Republicans have continued to take aim at Fauci over concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the vaccines used to prevent the spread of the novel virus. Some Republicans have also questioned the origins of COVID-19 amid reports that the virus may have originated from a lab in Wuhan, China.

In September, the COVID Select Subcommittee claimed in a letter that Fauci had secret meetings with members of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to discuss the origins of COVID-19.

In February, the Wall Street Journal published a report detailing that the U.S. Department of Energy determined with "low confidence" that COVID-19 originated from a lab leak in China. Fauci later responded: "You have to look at the data. I don't see any data for a lab leak."

"That doesn't mean it could not have happened, and that's the reason I keep an open mind always about that," Fauci said during an interview with The Boston Globe in February.

Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, recently criticized Fauci, saying that he lied to Congress over questions relating to gain-of-function research at the lab in Wuhan, China.

A series of posts from the COVID Select Subcommittee on X, formerly Twitter, also discussed gain-of-function research, saying, "Dr. Fauci profusely defended his previous testimony where he stated @NIH does not fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan. Today, he repeatedly played semantics with the definition of gain-of-function in an attempt to avoid conceding that NIH funded this dangerous research."

"Dr. Fauci claimed he 'did not recall' pertinent COVID-19 information or conversations more than 100 times," another post said.

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is a member of the Select Subcommittee, spoke about Fauci's testimony on Monday, claiming that he believed in "enhancing the viruses using gain-of-function research or that capability, in order to create vaccines."

"This is a shocking thing to think about," Greene said.

Newsweek's attempts to reach Fauci directly were unsuccessful. Newsweek reached out to the NIAID via email for comment.