Former FDA Commissioner: Fauci Briefed World Leaders on Potential Lab Leak a Year Ago

Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said that Dr. Anthony Fauci was aware of and briefed world leaders on the potential virus leak from a Wuhan, China lab a year ago.

From the Daily Caller:

Gottlieb told “Face the Nation” host John Dickerson that a senior official in former President Donald Trump’s administration had informed him there was suspicion that the strain “looked unusual,” which prompted Fauci to address the possibility that it had leaked from a research laboratory in Wuhan.

Gottlieb added that Fauci briefed leaders about the possibility:

“Well, I was told at that time, back in the spring, that Dr. Fauci had gone over to a meeting of world health leaders in Europe and actually briefed them on the information that they were looking at, that this could have been a potential lab leak, that this strain looked unusual,” Gottlieb replied. “I think early on, when they looked at the strain, they had suspicions. And it takes time to do that analysis, and that dispelled some of those suspicions.”

Fauci has been under fire after thousands of his emails were made public by a Freedom of Information Act request, with some emails revealing that Fauci was briefed about the lab leak theory early on in the pandemic. Despite his knowledge of the possibility, Fauci continued to deny the leak theory’s scientific validity in public appearances.

“If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species,” Fauci said in May of last year.

But Republican lawmakers such as Sen. Rand Paul, a consistent critic of Fauci’s, have insisted the doctor should step down and accused him of misleading the public.

“It’s time to fire Fauci! Emails that have been released now under Freedom of Information Act show two very important things: 1. FAUCI has been lying 2. I’ve been right all along,” Paul said after Fauci’s emails were released. “Stand with me today while we keep showing the way.”

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