Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., told Newsmax on Friday that he believes Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, lied to Congress when he testified about government funding at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
"I do believe on the evidence that we've seen that he has lied to Congress," McCormick told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren" and guest host Tom Basile.
Fauci, President Joe Biden's top adviser on the pandemic from 2021 to 2022, testified to Congress in May 2021 that the National Institutes of Health, which the NIAID is a part of, "has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology."
According to the NIH, gain-of-function research involves experiments that seek to increase the transmissibility and/or virulence of pathogens.
But Fauci's testimony was contradicted Thursday by NIH Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak, who testified in a hearing of the House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, on which McCormick serves, that the NIH did fund gain-of-function research through EcoHealth Alliance at the Wuhan lab, where many believe the coronavirus leaked from.
Not only did Fauci, who retired from government service, tell Congress that didn't occur through the NIH, but so did Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, which did research at the Wuhan lab using federal grants.
McCormick said he is eager to confront Fauci, 83, who is set to testify June 3 in front of the subcommittee, about Tabak's testimony and other evidence uncovered about the Wuhan lab and government funding.
"We'll try to ... [find out] why he's mincing words, why he's trying to deny what the definition of gain of function is," McCormick said. "We'll basically nail him down to all the things he said, all the emails have been released since that time, the tens of thousands of pages of emails that I don't think he ever thought would come out that they were using in their civilian accounts that we can now have access to and actually expose the truth."
On May 22, Dr. David Morens. a top adviser to Fauci at the NIAID, is scheduled to testify in front of the select subcommittee about new evidence alleging he deliberately obstructed the subcommittee's investigations into the origins of COVID-19 to protect his former boss.
The subcommittee said in a news release that emails it obtained showed that Daszak advised Morens' legal team about tactics to delay Morens' public testimony until after Fauci's hearing.
In an April 20 email, Daszak wrote, "Each day of delay helps. They're trying to book David in for a public hearing between mine [May 1] and Fauci's [June 3]. David's lawyers are trying to negotiate and delay his til after Tony."
Two days later, Morens' attorney told subcommittee staff that Morens was "unavailable" to appear for a public hearing on May 7, providing four alternatives dates, "all of which Dr. Morens and his team seemingly understood to be unacceptable given the public Congressional and Select Subcommittee schedule," the news release said.
In 2020, the Trump administration suspended government funding to EcoHealth Alliance, but that was reversed during Biden's presidency.
On Wednesday, Biden's Department of Health and Human Services again suspended funding for EcoHealth Alliance, citing problems in EcoHealth's monitoring of work done at the Wuhan Iab, the late submission of a progress report, and the possibility that a risky experiment had violated the terms of a grant.
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