Former COVID testing czar Brett Girior slams Fauci for calling Rand Paul a liar for asking 'legitimate questions' on the $600K NIH grant to the Wuhan lab and gain-of-function research
Trump's COVID testing czar Brett Girior is taking a swing at Dr. Anthony Fauci over his heated exchange with Rand Paul on Tuesday, demanding the top doctor answer Paul's 'legitimate questions' about his links to a Wuhan lab.
Girior criticized Fauci's conduct and defended the senator's line of questioning in an appearance on 'Fox & Friends' Wednesday morning.
'I have never, ever seen - and I hope it never happens again - that a witness who's a public health official calls a US senator a liar and doesn't know what he was talking about when clearly Senator Paul read the paper and had important points to be made,' the former White House COVID task force member said.
Girior criticized Fauci's attitude toward Paul and defended the senator's line of questioning in an appearance on 'Fox & Friends' Wednesday morning
Fauci was interrogated by senators at a Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on Tuesday over whether he funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
In a particularly tense exchange, Kentucky Republican Rand Paul hinted that Fauci lied to Congress at a previous hearing and appeared to imply he funded research that could have fueled the coronavirus pandemic.
'If anybody is lying here, senator, it is you,' Fauci snapped.
Girior criticized Fauci's aggressive approach.
'I was really concerned, because I don't think that posture was good for him, good for the hearing or good to inspire confidence in the American people,' he said.
Girior (right), a former Trump coronavirus task force member, told Fox host Brian Kilmeade (left) Fauci's responses to Paul do not 'inspire confidence in the American people'
The junior Republican senator from Kentucky appeared to back Girior's Wednesday interview
Paul amplified Girior Fox News segment on his Twitter Wednesday morning.
Fauci denied the implication that NIH money went toward gain of function research in Wuhan, but Girior said the doctor was 'hiding behind' technicalities.
'What they did fund was exactly what Rand Paul said,' Girior said. 'They funded researchers to go hundreds of miles away into the back of bat caves, extract dangerous viruses from bats that have never been seen by humans before, and bring them to a city of 10 million people in the Wuhan lab
'Next, they chopped up those viruses and created new Frankenstein viruses to see if they could infect human cells. Now that may not technically be "gain of function research," but it’s dangerous research, and Senator Paul’s questions deserve to be answered.'
He speculated that those 'new' viruses would be stored for use by China as bioweapons.
In a particularly tense exchange at a Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on Tuesday, Paul hinted that Fauci lied to Congress at a previous hearing and appeared to imply he committed a crime
Gain of function research looks at both transmitting disease between animals and humans and is a way for scientists to alter organisms and diseases to study how they could become deadlier or more transmissible.
The NIH definition of gain of function includes 'scientific research that increases the transmissibility among animals is gain-of-function.'
NIH, which Fauci runs, allocated $600,000 to a group called EcoHealth Alliance, which then paid the Wuhan Institute of Virology to study the risk that bat coronaviruses could infect humans.
Paul grilled Fauci in May about the $600,000 in funding allocated for EcoHealth Alliance, which turned around and paid the Wuhan Institute of Virology to study how bat coronavirus could infect humans.
The $600,000 in funding was reinstated in August after a different earlier grant was blocked in April 2020 amid concern over safety at the Wuhan lab.
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