The mainstream media faces the biggest problem they've had since Khrushchev denounced Stalin. Another hero has fallen. For years, they celebrated Tony Fauci has the embodiment of all good things: science, truth, health, courage, scholarship, media savvy. Now he has fallen, immortalized in infamy, leaving all those who bet everything on him completely exposed and humiliated.

@stephenasmith asked who decides what is gain-of-function: scientists, Congress, or a jury? The truth is EcoHealth and Fauci’s team called it gain-of-function themselves. Enough games. This research was dangerous and never should have been funded.

What was Fauci’s motive for misleading the world? That is clear as a bell: he had spent decades championing the idea that gain-of-function research on risky viruses was a good idea, even as others expressed serious doubts. Specifically, Fauci’s NIAID funded the work on coronaviruses, first at the University of North Carolina, and then in Wuhan. Fauci himself knew this by 23 January 2020, when an email was sent with the following subject: ‘Urgent for Dr Fauci: China’s lab for studying SARS and Ebola is in Wuhan, the outbreak’s centre’, which discussed the grant NIAID had given the intermediary body, EcoHealth Alliance, to fund the work in Wuhan. So Fauci knew from then onwards that if a lab leak looked plausible, his own role in godfathering the research would come out. He had to keep a lid on it for a few weeks until the outbreak petered out. Only it did not peter out.

Great discussion with @stephenasmith on why I still have serious questions for Dr. Fauci. In 2010, before any pandemic existed, Fauci argued in The Washington Post that even a lab leak causing a pandemic would be worth the "knowledge" gained. That is not a pandemic-era mistake. That is a philosophy he held for over a decade and used as justification for funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan starting in 2014.

"They lied to us. There is now little doubt that, like Chernobyl, Bhopal and 9/11, the pandemic was manmade...Yet a bunch of people with power and influence did their utmost to bury the truth about the cause." - @mattwridley

Only an ignoramus or a fraud would claim "The charges against Fauci are baseless" or "No credible evidence has been produced." Every signer of the letter clearly is an ignoramus or a fraud. Many likely are both.

True public servants should have a Duty of Candour. Fauci took the Fifth. He chose silence. Public servants should serve the public. Sen Hawley says Fauci's diary reveals he "used eight separate federal employees on federal time using federal resources to solicit cash awards".

HAWLEY: "What day of the week is it today?" FAUCI: "I respectfully decline to answer...." HAWLEY: "What color tie are you wearing?" FAUCI: "I respectfully decline to answer..." HAWLEY: "What color is the carpet in front of you?" FAUCI: "I respectfully decline to answer..." HAWLEY: "Let's just get ONE THING STRAIGHT. You DON'T HAVE any rights under the Fifth Amendment because you've been pardoned... You know that. Your lawyers... shifting nervously in their chairs, they know it." "This isn't about the Constitution... This is about contempt. Contempt for this body and contempt for the American people."

If I were a senator, I would ask Fauci: “If you admit that you helped create COVID-19, say, ‘On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based on my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.’”

After @SenRandPaul released thousands of pages of Anthony’s Fauci’s diary and internal comms, I spoke with @R_H_Ebright who Fauci calls an ‘asshole’ in those diaries. Ebright says the documents show Fauci ‘defrauded the American public’ about Covid. And @garyruskin says he’s never seen “obfuscation and misdirection by a federal agency worse than what the NIH has done” and they “were trying to deny even the possibility that American tax dollars and American academic support was part of the reason why COVID-19 came into being.”

If this new policy banning federal funding of dangerous gain-of-function research (dGOF) had been in place in the past--instead of Fauci's wantonly reckless prioritization of DGOF--the COVID pandemic would not have occurred, and 20 million killed by COVID would still be alive.

The White House today announced a policy banning federal funding for dangerous gain-of-function (DGOF) research and establishing an independent federal review board to implement the ban. US Government Policy for Stopping High-Risk Life Sciences Research

If this new policy banning federal funding of dangerous gain-of-function research (dGOF) had been in place in the past--instead of Fauci's wantonly reckless prioritization of DGOF--the COVID pandemic would not have occurred, and 20 million killed by COVID would still be alive.

The White House today announced a policy banning federal funding for dangerous gain-of-function (DGOF) research and establishing an independent federal review board to implement the ban. US Government Policy for Stopping High-Risk Life Sciences Research