Dr. Anthony Fauci, the public face of the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, is scheduled to testify before Congress for the first time in nearly two years on Monday by a Republican-led committee and is likely to be grilled about alleged misconduct that occurred under his direction at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
Fauci, who served as director of NIAID for nearly four decades, is scheduled to testify before the House Select Subcommittee on COVID-19, his first testimony since leaving government service at the end of 2022.
He last testified before Congress in September 2022, when he appeared before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to discuss the response to MPOX with other health officials.
Fauci returned to Capitol Hill earlier this year for two days of closed-door interviews with the subcommittee, a recording of which was made public on Friday ahead of the hearing.
His testimony came on the heels of two highly contentious hearings before the subcommittee that raised questions about the level of oversight and conduct taking place at his agency, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has thrust him into the public eye.
It can be a stressful hearing, so here’s what you need to know beforehand.
Official documents controversy
Fauci is likely to face tough questioning from Republicans about what he knew about the work of another NIAID official who has been accused of evading public records laws.
Over the past month, the select subcommittee has heard testimony from Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, and David Morens, a senior adviser to the NIAID director who has worked closely with Fauci.
Morens’ testimony did little to warm Republicans to Fauci, whose previously released emails suggested he knew about the NIAID record fraud and tried to distance himself from it.
In an email exchange with Daszak, Morens wrote, “…there is no need to worry about FOIA. You can send the information to Tony’s private Gmail or hand it over to him at work or at home. He’s smart enough to not let his coworkers send him information that could cause him problems.”
In another email, Morens told Daszak that Fauci was trying to shield EcoHealth from scrutiny, while another suggested the former NIAID director had no particular involvement in the NIH grant.Molens testified before the subcommittee that in conversations with Fauci he was asked if he had played a role in eliminating the EcoHealth grant, but Fauci gave no response.
Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) questioned to The Hill whether Fauci’s leadership as NIAID director influenced Mullens’ actions.
“Under Dr. Fauci, we see a willingness to deceive with Dr. Daszak and Dr. David Morens of the EcHealth Alliance, and, you know, they seem to have no remorse.”
In Fauci’s January interview, in which he mentioned Mullens’ name sporadically, most of the questions were about whether Fauci had dictated how Mullens communicated with the press. Fauci said he deferred to the NIAID public affairs office on those issues.
Democrats have repeatedly accused Republicans of trying to shift the blame for pitfalls in the pandemic response onto public health officials like Fauci.
Partisan hearings
Republicans and Democrats on the subcommittee plan to approach the hearing from different angles.
Wenstrup said he plans to continue questioning the former administration official about the grant process, whether Fauci knew about the communications between Morens and Daszak, and what he thinks about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think we need to ask whether he thinks that was a good process and I would like to hear his opinion on what we should do going forward because he was involved in what I think was a mistake or a flawed process,” the chairman said. “Maybe we’ll hear from him going forward about how we can do better.”
Fauci repeatedly said throughout the January interview that he didn’t remember specific details — often in response to particularly detailed questions or whether he remembered talking to specific people — and he himself seemed to anticipate how this would affect him.
“This is going to be, ‘Fauci said this so many times I can’t remember,’ and I can’t remember,” he said in a second day of interviews.
Wenstrup said he hoped Fauci’s memory would have improved in the months since the interview.
“But there are a lot of things he said that I don’t remember, and it would be in his best interest not to remember them,” Wenstrup said. “I’m not a lawyer, but I think that might be lawyerly advice.”
Rep. Deborah Ross (R-N.C.), a Democratic member of the committee, said she plans to ask Dr. Fauci what public health guidance he can offer.
“The focus is going to be on what public health has learned, how we can improve and how we move forward in terms of communicating with the community,” Ross said.
Asked whether he thought Fauci’s testimony would have value given the in-depth interview he gave several months earlier, Ross said, “It would be valuable if we could work together toward a common goal. But I don’t think it’s worth it to attack public health officials who did the best they could with public health goals in mind at the time.”
Fauci interview
A recording of Fauci’s January interview with the select subcommittee was made public on Friday, offering a glimpse into how the veteran scientist thought about the pandemic and his tenure as the nation’s chief health adviser. Fauci has avoided interviews or public comments since leaving NIAID.
In the interview, he reiterated that he supports both the natural origin and lab leak theories about the virus, but given current scientific evidence he is leaning toward the natural origin theory.
He also reiterated his position that the Wuhan Institute of Virology has not received federal funding to support gain-of-function research to make pathogens more transmissible and predict how they might mutate in the future.
Fauci said the “strict definition” of gain-of-function research is that it is an experiment aimed at causing “increased infectivity or virulence.” [potential pandemic pathogen]He did not believe that gain-of-function research was funded by U.S. grants.
He also briefly touched on how his previous congressional testimony has affected him and his family.
When asked about threats he had received during the pandemic, Fauci asked for “a moment” and the interview was taken off-camera. When the interview was taken off-camera again, he linked the threats and harassment he had received during the pandemic to his previous testimony.
“Every time Senator Rand Paul stands up and says he’s responsible for 4 million deaths, death threats are made, threats are made against me, my wife and my children,” he said.
Fauci and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have had several heated exchanges in Senate hearings throughout the pandemic. 2022 HearingsFauci accused Paul of “distorting everything about me,” adding that he “just does the same thing at every hearing.”
“I don’t really want to talk about it because I don’t want to get infected,” Fauci added. “But the threats against me, my wife, my children were constant. I have three daughters, they were 28, 31 and 33 at the time, and they were calling my daughters, I don’t know how they got my phone number, but they were saying, ‘We know where you live, we know where you work,’ and there were very aggressive, violent, sexually explicit threats against my daughters and my wife.”
Fauci said Testimony Schedule It will be presented at a subcommittee meeting at 10 a.m. EDT on Monday.
