Fauci to Sen. Rand Paul: Your Personal Attacks on Me ‘Have Absolutely No Relevance to Reality’
EXCERPT:
Paul: “This wasn’t the only time. Your desire to take down those who disagree with you didn’t stop with Harvard, Oxford and Stanford. You conspired with Peter Daszak, who you communicated with privately, and other members of the scientific community that wrote opinion pieces for ‘Nature,’ five of them signed a paper for ‘Nature,’ an opinion piece, 17 signed a paper that called it conspiracy theory, the idea that the virus could have originated in the lab. Do you think words like ‘conspiracy theory’ should be in a scientific paper?”
FAUCI: “Senator, I never used that word when I was referring to it. You’re distorting virtually everything — “
Paul: “Did you communicate with the five scientists who wrote the opinion piece in ‘Nature’ where they were describing, oh, there’s no way this could come from a lab?”
FAUCI: “That was not me. What I did — “
Paul: “Did you talk to any of those scientists privately?”
FAUCI: “You keep distorting the truth. It is stunning that you do that.”
Paul: “Did you talk to any of the scientists privately who wrote the opinion?”
FAUCI: “Yes.”
Paul: “You did. What were they telling you privately?”
FAUCI: “Well, let me explain. You know, you’re going back to that original discussion when I brought together a group of people to look at every possibility with an open mind. So not only are you distorting it, you are completely turning it around, as you usually do.”
Paul: “Were most of the scientists that came to you privately, did they come to you privately and say, ‘No way this came from the lab?’ Or was there an initial impression, Dr. Gary and others that were involved, was there an initial impression, actually, that it looked very suspicious for a virus that came from a lab?”
FAUCI: “Senator, we are here at a committee to look at a virus now that has killed almost 900,000 people. And the purpose of the committee was to try and get things out how we can help to get the American public. And you keep coming back to personal attacks on me that have absolutely no relevance to reality.”
Paul: “Do you think anybody has had more influence over a response to this than you have? Do you think it’s a great success — do you think it’s a great success what’s happened so far? Do you think the lockdown is very good for our kids? Do you think we slowed down the death rate? More people have died now under President Biden than did under President Trump. You are the one responsible. You are the architect. You are the lead architect for the response from the government and now 800,000 people have died. Do you think it’s a winning success what you’ve advocated for government?”
FAUCI: “Senator, first of all, if you look at everything that I’ve said, you accuse me of, in a monolithic way, telling people what they need to do. Everything I’ve said has been in support of the CDC guidelines. Wear a mask, get boosted, get vaccinated — “
Paul: “And you’ve advocated to make it coercive and — “
FAUCI: “Take everything that I’ve said — “
Paul: “You’ve advocated that it be done by mandate. You have advocated that your infallible opinion be dictated by law.”
FAUCI: “Right. So, again, Madam Chair, I would like just a couple of minute because this happens all the time. You personally attacked me, with absolutely not a shred of evidence of anything you say. So I would like to make something clear to the committee. He’s doing this for political reasons. What you need to do is — he said in front of this committee — “
Paul: “You think your takedown of three prominent epidemiologists was not political? That was my question.”
FAUCI: “You don’t want me to finish because you know what I’m going to say.”
Paul: “That was the question.”