Hearing on COVID Lab Leak Theory

Thank you, Chairman.

For two years, myself and the other Republicans

on this subcommittee connected the dots.

We exposed the evidence supporting our strong belief

that COVID was developed and leaked from the Wuhan lab.

And during those same two years,

the same Democrats that sit on this committee,

they only hindered, they obstructed,

they refused to hold hearings and get to the truth.

Now we see mounting evidence supporting the

COVID-19 originated from the lab in Wuhan, China

run by the Communist Chinese Party.

And this hearing is about getting to the truth.

I thank the chairman for making this the very first hearing

because the American people who have seen just as many fellow Americans

die from COVID as nearly as many die from COVID

that died in every war since the American Revolution combined

deserve to know the truth.

Dr. Redfield, you pointed to the lab leak theory

even before we did.

In mid-January of 2020, you expressed concerns to Dr. Fauci,

to Jeremy Farrar of UK's Welcome Trust and

to Dr. Tedros of World Health Organization that,

quote, we had to take the lab leak hypothesis with extreme seriousness.

And you urged Dr. Fauci to investigate

both the lab and the natural hypotheses.

Shortly thereafter, on February 1st, Farrar convened a meeting

of a group of 11 top scientists across five time zones

and asked Dr. Fauci to join.

And he wrote, quote, my preference is to keep this group really tight,

obviously ask everyone to treat in total confidence, unquote.

Dr. Redfield, you were excluded from this call,

but up until then,

you had been on every single,

you were included in every other conversation.

What changed?

Why do you think that you were excluded from these conversations?

Thank you very much.

I think just to emphasize,

in early to mid-January, I did have multiple calls with Fauci,

Farrar and Tedros about how important I thought it was that

science get engaged in aggressively pursuing both hypotheses.

I also expressed, as a clinical virologist,

that I felt it was not scientifically plausible that

this virus went from a bat to humans

and became one of the most infectious viruses that we have for humans.

All viruses are not the same.

So when you look at coronaviruses,

for SARS and MERS, for example.

When they entered the human species, which they did via an intermediate,

they never learned how to go human to human.

Even to this day, they don't know how to go human to human.

So you can't equate Ebola with a coronavirus.

Why do you think you were excluded from those calls?

Because it was told to me that they wanted a single narrative

and that I obviously had a different point of view.

Okay.

Emails following the conference call for the 11 scientists

told Fauci that they all found the genetic sequence inconsistent

with expectations from evolutionary theory, basically what you're saying.

However, just three days later, these four scientists

had drafted a paper arguing the exact opposite,

and that's now the infamous proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2.

Our investigations show this paper was prompted by Dr. Fauci,

among others, with a goal to disprove the lab leak theory.

What is the likelihood that these scientists came across additional information

just three days after making these statements to conclude with such certainty

that COVID-19 came from nature instead of the lab leak

that they thought it was three days earlier?

Yeah, I think it's unfortunate.

Again, I've said this before,

that this whole approach that was taken on February 1st

and subsequently in the month of February,

if you really want to be truthful,

it's antithetical to science.

Thank you.

Science has debate, and they squashed any debate.

Thank you.

Given what we know now in looking at all the conversations

in February of 2020 and before the release of the paper,

do you think that Dr. Fauci used this paper

to hide the gain-of-function research created this virus?

I can't talk about Fauci's motivation.

Do you think that the paper does hide the truth?

I think it's an inaccurate paper

that basically was part of a narrative that they were creating.

Remember, this pandemic did not start in January at the seafood market.

We now know there was infections all the way back into September.

This was a narrative that was decided that

they were going to say this came from the wet market,

and they were going to do everything they could to support it

to negate any discussion about the possibility that this came from a laboratory.

I've got 20 seconds left.

Dr. Fauci was affirmatively told in an email

that NIAID had a monetary relationship with the Wuhan Institute

through EcoHealth Alliance.

He was told this in January 27th of 2020.

Do you think that Dr. Fauci intentionally lied under oath

to Senator Paul when he vehemently denied NIH's funding of gain-of-function research?

I think there's no doubt that NIH was funding gain-of-function research.

Is it likely that American tax dollars funded the gain-of-function research

that created this virus?

I think it did, not only from NIH,

but from the State Department, USAID, and from DOD.

I'm out of time.

Thank you very much.