RedState’s Scott Hounsell has been doing incredible work uncovering the fact pattern surrounding Dr. Anthony Fauci and grant money that made its way to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to do gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses. Hounsell recently reported that Fauci had defended such research in Congressional testimony in April of 2012. Some members had apparently picked up on the obvious risks associated with such research.

In April 2012, Dr. Fauci appeared before the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs of the United States Senate to testify about the use of DURC/Gain-of-function research and balancing the risks and “concerns.” Fauci led by emphasizing his agency’s “efforts to develop a ‘universal’ influenza vaccine” that “would potentially save millions of lives and be of great global economic benefit” and their role as “the lead component of NIH for research on biodefense against terrorist attacks…and naturally occurring emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases including seasonal and pandemic influenza.”

We also reported that Fauci co-authored an opinion piece in the Washington Post on December 30, 2011 defending gain-of-function research – just weeks after results of NIH-funded studies were published which “describe[d] laboratory experiments that resulted in [H5N1] viruses with enhanced transmissibility in mammals,” a development that alarmed many in the scientific community, leading to calls for either a halt on such research or increased safeguards to prevent accidental lab leaks and to prevent the methodology from getting into the wrong hands. In that op-ed, Fauci and NIH Director Francis Collins declared that this research is a “risk worth taking.”

Now, a paper from October 2012 first reported by The Australian shows that Fauci continued to defend gain-of-function research, again acknowledging the risks and proclaiming they were worth taking.

BOMBSHELL! Dr Fauci in 2012 wrote that “gain of function” research to juice up bat viruses was worth risking a pandemic: “the benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks. It is more likely that a pandemic would occur in nature” @SharriMarkson scoop https://t.co/S7ILuzgnNw pic.twitter.com/iwyPCPctId

— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) May 28, 2021

Let’s just start by noting that this is yet more evidence that Fauci’s expertise and two dollars will buy you a coke. This guy has been wrong his entire career about varying topics and he’s somehow still managed to become a worshiped cult figure and a lead government advisor on infectious diseases. He was wrong about masks. He was wrong about herd immunity. He was wrong about the efficacy of the vaccines. He was wrong about schools. He was wrong about how the virus transmits. Now, we find out that he was likely wrong about the dangers of gain-of-function research. You get the point. This is a deeply unimpressive figure.

Regardless, the meat and potatoes here is that Fauci was once again defending gain-of-function research later in 2012 at the same time the U.S. government was sending grants to the Wuhan lab in question. What’s that tell you? It tells you that Fauci almost certainly knew what the money was going toward given he would have been responsible for overseeing the grant. The fact that he chose to make gain-of-function research an issue and defend it in 2012 also points to the idea that he knew what was going on.

And, he was even wrong about gain-of-function research. All of those benefits he described in op-eds and before Congress never came to fruition when we needed them the most – when the coronavirus was unleashed on the world in late 2019.

All of this is in stark contrast to the lies he told Rand Paul, trying to paint the Senator as a conspiracy theorist when he pressed Fauci on why money was sent to the Wuhan lab. Since that original exchange, we’ve seen a sea-change in the public discourse surrounding the lab leak theory as the mainstream media and their big tech allies have realized they can’t suppress the story anymore. Fresh evidence has also arisen, including the knowledge that three Wuhan Institute of Virology scientists got sick with COVID-like symptoms in November of 2019.

This is a major ordeal and the truth must come out. Millions of people have died from the coronavirus throughout the world. If this virus leaked from a Chinese lab after being created with research grants approved by Fauci while he was defending gain-of-function research and downplaying the risks, that’s the biggest scandal of the decade and it’s not even close.