COVID Lab Leak Hearing Analysis

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 with 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 corona virus

Why do you think you were excluded from those calls

I because it was I was told to me that They wanted a single narrative and that I obviously had a different point of view

Okay And 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 kovat To our investigation 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 kovat 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

January February 1st and Subsequently in the month of February 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 and 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 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 lot 20 seconds

left. Dr. Fauci was affirmatively toad and told in an email that

Ni aid 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.