The original theory concerning the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic was that it came from a wet market in Wuhan, China. However, most experts believe that this theory no longer holds, and most of the evidence points to a lab leak of some sort from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Originally, the roles were reversed. Many saw the lab leak theory as a conspiracy theory from conservatives while people who were actually following the evidence that was publicly available noted that it wasn’t so far-fetched. Multiple reports by various media outlets intending to cover this up by saying “We were just following the information we had at the time!” ignore the outright hostility they maintained toward anyone who suggested the lab leak theory was more plausible.

But one of the interesting (and horrifying) tidbits that came out about this particular lab is the involvement of the United States government — and, more directly, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s involvement. RedState’s own Scott Hounsell has worked brilliantly on breaking a lot of this information down (you can find all of his reporting here). Fauci has now been caught lying to Rand Paul and the rest of the country over the gain-of-function research that the U.S. helped pay for and that Fauci appears to have directly overseen.

Before I continue, I need to clarify something: Saying the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan is not the same as saying the virus was created by the Chinese government. A lot of the evidence seems to suggest that the virus did occur naturally in bats and that this facility in Wuhan was studying it. The introduction of gain-of-function research, however, suggests that some tampering was done to test the possibilities of the virus’ effect on humans, should it jump species in some way. The National Institute of Health confirmed via a document release that, despite what Fauci claimed, the U.S. did have a hand in funding this research.

That makes this weekend’s appearance on Face the Nation by Fauci much more notable, because it’s very clear that he does not want Americans to find out the role that the NIH — and, by extension, he — played in the pandemic. From his interview with Margaret Brennan, after he talked about the wet market originally:

Brennan told him that “Beijing acknowledges now that they don’t think it originated in that market,” but Fauci disagreed.

“It may not have originated in the market, but it certainly could have. I mean, I don’t think that they admitted that it didn’t originate in the market. I think they’re saying they don’t know how it originated.”

Gao Fu, director of China’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in May 2020 that he did not believe the Wuhan wet market is where COVID-19 began.

Brennan argued that “the place of origin was not within the market itself.”

Fauci disagreed: “I don’t think you can say that. I think you could say we don’t know how and where it originated. There are wet markets in Wuhan that are ample opportunity for a virus to jump from an animal that gets brought in from all parts of China that are very closely related physically to bat enclaves and caves and come to the market.”

Fauci is far more politician than health expert at this point. The twisting of words and phrases to dodge criticism is extremely suspicious at best. Here, he is trying to keep the interview’s focus on the wet market theory, trying to exhaust that conversation in order to avoid any tougher questions about the origins of the virus.

There are very few credible people, at this point, who believe the wet market is the more likely origin of the virus. That Fauci is pushing that theory at all is telling. He is either not a credible person or he is attempting to deflect and hide. Or, as my former colleague Moe Lane might say, “Embrace the healing power of ‘and’.”

What’s really happening is this: Fauci has become rather addicted to the media spotlight in the last couple of years. The media has treated him like a king and he has used that to pontificate rather than stick to the actual science. But the problem is that his musings on what’s best for us are being taken as actual science by a media establishment that is so traumatized from a combination of Donald Trump and the pandemic that they can’t see the problems with the things Fauci has been saying.

Be prepared for another lockdown? That’s absolute insanity. The previous lockdown was a major contributor to the current economic crisis. There is no way the U.S. economy could handle that, especially when the evidence on the new variant in South Africa suggests the cases are very mild.

It is well past time for Fauci to go. He is doing more to damage the public’s confidence in the fight against the virus and the strength of the vaccines than the virus itself. If you want America to truly return to a sense of normalcy, even as the virus transitions from “pandemic” to “endemic,” Fauci needs to be given a rather forceful suggestion to retire.