Fauci secretly went to CIA HQ to ‘influence’ COVID-19 origins probe, House Republican alleges
The Republican Chairman of the House Coronavirus Panel alleges that Dr. Anthony Fauci, a virologist at the University of California San Francisco, was “escorted secretly” to the CIA’s headquarters to try to “influence” its investigations into COVID-19 and the origins during the pandemic.
Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, the head of House Select Subcommittee for the Coronavirus Pandemic revealed “concerning” information obtained by his committee in a Tuesday letter to the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services. He argued that this “lends credibility to heightened concern about the promotion of an incorrect COVID-19 Origins narrative by numerous federal government agencies.”
Wenstrup stated that “the information provided suggests Dr. Fauci participated in the analyses to ‘influence the Agency’s’ review,” Wenstrup. “Our goal was to ensure that the scientific investigation process concerning the origins COVID-19 would be fair, impartial and free from alternative influences.”
Wenstrup did not mention the date of Fauci’s alleged visit to CIA Headquarters in Langley (Va.) in his letter to HHS Inspector General Christi Grimm.
Wenstrup claims that “the American people deserve to know the truth — the origins and the extent of the lab leak theory, as well as whether public health authorities made a concerted attempt to suppress it for political or national-security purposes.” He also demands information about “the movements of Dr. Fauci during the pandemic.”
Wenstrup is specifically seeking documents and communications from HHS, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and US Marshals Service – assigned to protect Fauci – regarding the former White House Coronavirus Czar’s admission or entry into CIA-owned, operated or occupied building.
Wenstrup continues, “In addition to the documents we have provided you with, we ask that [HHS] Special agent Brett Rowland be available at a later date for a voluntary transcripted interview.”
The new allegations come after a senior-level CIA officer-turned-whistleblower alleged to Congress earlier this month that the intelligence agency offered to pay off six analysts in order to bury their findings that COVID-19 most likely leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.
According to Wenstrup (R-Ohio) and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chair Mike Turner, the analysts who discovered SARS-CoV-2 probably originated in a Wuhan laboratory were asked to report that this virus had jumped from animal to human.
According to lawmakers, a seventh analyst was the only member of the team who believed that COVID-19 had been a result of zoonosis.
In June, the US Intelligence Community declassified a 10-page report about COVID origins, in which it found that “biosafety issues” and “genetic engineered” SARS-CoV-2 were being conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. However, most of their “agencies” assess that SARS CoV-2 was not genetically modified.
It says that the CIA and another intelligence agency are “still unable to determine the exact origin of the COVID-19 Pandemic” as both hypotheses rely upon significant assumptions or have problems with contradictory reporting.