Trump's ex-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows slams Fauci for turning blind eye to probe of Wuhan lab leak: 'It’s time that we hold him accountable'

Meadows claims Fauci disregarded idea to investigate if leak at Wuhan Institute of Virology caused COVID outbreak
Says Fauci had probable cause to investigate, but 'looked the other way'
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul also accuses Fauci of funding possible creation of the virus
Paul and Fauci have gotten into multiple public exchanges when it comes to the origins and handling of the coronavirus pandemic

Published: 16:46 BST, 23 July 2021 | Updated: 17:56 BST, 23 July 2021

e-mail

Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows accused Dr. Anthony Fauci of ignoring requests to probe a possible leak at a Wuhan lab that could be related to the outbreak of the coronavirus in 2019, during an interview with Fox on Thursday.

'He was putting out more press releases than he was signing checks to figure out where this virus started," Meadows told the cable network.

'Dr. Fauci not only had probable cause to look that it was a lab leak, but he looked the other way. You know, it’s time that we hold him accountable,' Meadows said on Fox News Primetime.

Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows (left) said Dr. Anthony Fauci turned a blind eye to Covid-19's possible emergence from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Fauci has refuted such claims

Mark Meadows and other Trump supporters suspect that a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology could have led to the outbreak of the coronavirus

This is not the first time Fauci has received accusations regarding the alleged origins of COVID-19 at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Earlier this week, Sen. Rand Paul questioned Fauci on gain of function – and the U.S. indirectly funding that research in China – on a few occasions. The theory has emerged in conservative circles as a potential answer to the origins of COVID-19.

Last month, the Kentucky Republican also accused Fauci of lying and demanded he be fired after a slew of his emails were made public.

Paul claimed to Fox News early in June that thousands of emails revealed by Buzzfeed News and the Washington Post proved Fauci may have been in-part responsible for the development of COVID-19.

The emails reveal that Fauci was warned privately of the possibility that the origins of COVID-19 were due to a lab leak in Wuhan – even though he publicly dismissed the ideas and allowed Democrats to call it a conspiracy.

The email revelation did not show Fauci’s personal take on the theory.

Fauci lashed out at Paul on Tuesday during a Senate hearing as he accused the Kentucky Republican of being a 'liar' who 'doesn't know what you're talking about' when it comes to COVID origins and gain-of-function research.

Fauci got quite animated during the exchange, as he pointed his fingers at Paul for being a 'liar'

Paul pointed back his pencil, and insisted the evidence shows National Institute of Health funding went to the Wuhan lab, who he claims then used that money to do research on how to make a bat coronavirus transmittable to humans and more infectious and deadly

The Fauci email leak in early June showed that the National Institute of Health was warned several times in January, February and April of 2020 by different experts that COVID-19 was likely the result of testing at the Wuhan lab in China.

On April 18, 2020, Fauci received an email from the head of a research group that’s partnered with WIV. In the email, the individual was thanking Fauci or publicly insisting evidence doesn’t point to the lab as the source.

Then, after mounting evidence supporting the lab leak theory was revealed in June, Fauci finally deflected by saying the origin is likely a natural occurrence, where it goes from an animal reservoir to a human.

In an interview with CNN, Fauci said he is 'keeping an open mind that it might be a lab leak' but dismissed the idea of bioengineering as 'far out'.

Fauci v Paul: The debate over gain-of-function research and the $600K NIH grant to the Wuhan lab

Senator Rand Paul and Dr. Anthony Fauci have been at loggerheads over gain-of-function research and a $600,000 grant the National Institutes of Health (NIH) gave to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2014.

Gain of Function Research (GOF) is a controversial practice that involves altering a virus or pathogen in order to study the development of new diseases and their transmission. The research can ultimately make the virus more contagious or more deadly in a lab.

According to an NIH definition, GOF includes studying and altering viruses in animals to make them transmissible to humans – and potentially more contagious and deadly.

Paul accused Fauci on May 11 of misleading Congress by saying the U.S. has never funded gain-of-function projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The Kentucky Republican points to a $3.7million grant NIH gave EcoHealth Alliance in 2014. EcoHealth Alliance in turn distributed nearly $600,000 of that funding to its collaborator, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

Paul has maintained that emails from Fauci showed that he was worried NIH funded gain-of-function research in February 2020 when the pandemic first started to emerge.

In an interview in June, Paul told Fox News: 'I think we've had a change of opinion. Everybody left-of-center was saying this was a conspiracy, no way it could have happened in the Wuhan lab. Now even Dr. Fauci is saying we should investigate it'

'But the emails paint a disturbing picture, a disturbing picture of Dr. Fauci form the very beginning worrying that he had been funding gain of function research. And he knows it to this day but hasn't admitted it.'

Paul claimed in the interview that 'there is a lot of evidence' that Fauci's views on the Wuhan lab-leak theory were compromised by a 'conflict of interest.'

'If it turns out this virus came from the Wuhan lab, which it looks like it did, that there's a great deal of culpability in that he was a big supporter of the funding,' Paul said.

'But he was also a big supporter to this day of saying that we can trust the Chinese on this, that we can trust Chinese scientists and I think that's quite naïve and really should preclude him form the position that he's in.

In June, Fauci dismissed revelations that he was warned at the start of pandemic that COVID-19 may have been 'engineered'.

Fauci seemed to play down a mass trove of damaging emails which include warnings from the start of the pandemic that the virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

He said his emails are 'ripe to be taken out of context' but he 'can't guarantee everything that is going on in the Wuhan lab'