July 20 clash — 'you do not know what you are talking about' (NBC)

Dr. Fauci, knowing that it is a crime to lie to Congress, do

you wish to retract your statement of May 11th where you claimed that the NIH never funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan?

Senator Paul, I have never lied

before the Congress, and I do not retract

that statement.

This paper that you're referring

to was judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not being gain of function.

So you're saying when you

take an animal virus and you increase its visibility to humans, you're saying that's not gain of function?

That is correct, and Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly, and I want to say that officially. You do not know what you are talking about.

Let's read from

the NIH definition

of

gain of function. This is your definition that you guys wrote. It says that scientific research that increases the transmissibility among animals is gain of function. They took animal viruses that only occur in animals, and they increased their transmissibility to humans. How you can say that is not gain of function? It is not. It's a dance, and you're dancing around this because you're trying to obscure responsibility for four million people dying around the world from a pandemic.

And let's send Dr. Fauci.

I

have

to, well, now you're getting into something. If the point that you are making is that the grant that was funded as a subaward from EcoHealth to Wuhan created SARS-CoV-2, that's where you are getting. Let me finish. We don't know. We

don't know if it did come from the lab, but all the evidence is pointing that it came from the lab, and there will be responsibility for those who funded the lab, including yourself.

I

totally resent--

This committee will allow the witness to-- I

totally resent the lie that you are now propagating, Senator, because if you look at the viruses that were used in the experiments that were given in the annual reports that were published in the literature, it is molecularly impossible.

No

one's

saying those viruses caused it.

No

one is alleging that those viruses caused the pandemic. What we're alleging is the gain of function research was going on in that lab, and NIH funded it. You can't get away from it.

It

meets your definition, and you are obfuscating the truth. I'm not

obfuscating the truth. You are the one. Dinner post time is expired, but I will allow the witness to-- Let me just finish.

I

want everyone to understand that if you look at those viruses, and that's judged by qualified virologists and evolutionary biologists, those viruses are molecularly impossible to result in SARS-CoV-2. No one's saying those

viruses caused the pandemic. We're saying they are gain of function viruses, because there were animal viruses that became more transmissible and human, and you funded it. And you-- Admit the truth. And you implying--

Senator Paul, your time has expired, and I will allow witnesses who come before this committee to respond.

And you are implying that what we did was responsible for the deaths of individual. I totally resent that. And if anybody is lying here, Senator, it is you.