Fauci potentially influenced CIA's COVID origins probe, top House Republican says

Dr. Anthony Fauci allegedly influenced the Central Intelligence Agency's report about the origins of COVID-19, according to information obtained by the Coronavirus Pandemic Select Subcommittee, Chairman Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, said. 

Wenstrup publicly disclosed Fauci's alleged role in the CIA's probe of COVID's origins in a letter Tuesday to the Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General. 

Fauci, who served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for nearly four decades before retiring last year, "was escorted into Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Headquarters—without a record of entry—and participated in the analysis to 'influence' the Agency’s review," Wenstrup said in the letter.

It is unclear when Fauci would have entered the CIA headquarters, but the U.S. Intelligence Community released a report in July on the origins of COVID in response to a law passed in March. The report stated that five intelligence agencies believe COVID's origins were natural, but the CIA and another unnamed agency were unable to pinpoint the origins of the virus. 

Fauci and then-National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins both played major roles in shaping a highly influential scientific paper that dismissed the theory that COVID-19 leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.

Allegations about Fauci's involvement in the CIA report come after the COVID subcommittee said earlier this month that a whistleblower claimed most officers on the CIA's COVID team concluded that the virus originated in a Wuhan lab, but their opinions changed after they were given a "significant monetary incentive."

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