Op-Ed: Anthony Fauci’s Top Five Sins

By Steve Levy

There is no doubt that Republicans were licking their chops to skewer former "Covid Czar" Dr.  Anthony Fauci at a recent hearing where he wound up taking the Fifth Amendment over 100 times.

Like any other hearing on Capitol Hill, it was going to be politically tinged, but that doesn’t erase the fact that many of their revelations about Fauci’s words and deeds were outright scorching.

The response from the mainstream media in defending Fauci was absolutely deplorable, though not unexpected. They painted the hearings as being a witch hunt by Republicans.

Most of these hearings are indeed just that from the party in power. But it doesn’t negate the fact that Fauci committed many sins that had devastating consequences.

Many folks who only watch CNN or MSNBC, or read just the New York Times weren’t even aware of these terrible decisions and outright lies from Fauci.

I was having a conversation with a liberal friend this week after the hearings. He was complaining about the Republicans’ treatment of Fauci. To my astonishment, he was not aware of the fact that Fauci had helped fund the gain-of-function research that led to the pandemic that killed millions around the world.

So for those who still think Fauci deserves to keep that media-placed halo on the top of his head, consider the following:

1. Fauci indeed helped fund the virus that killed millions. 

"Gain-of-function" is a process by which scientists manipulate the genes of a virus to make the virus more lethal.

Counterintuitively, they do it with well-intentioned motives. They seek to create a more virulent virus in the lab so that they have the opportunity to prepare a vaccine for it were such a virus were ever to hit the public.

For some reason, many scientists continued to believe this is a good idea. But most have long believed that the risks far outweigh the potential benefits. 

That’s exactly why the Obama administration banned the practice during their tenure.

But Fauci, who believes he is a medical god — once proclaiming that “I am science”– circumvented the Obama edict and laundered money for the research indirectly through a group named Eco Health Alliance, which eventually made its way to the Wuhan Lab under the control of the Chinese communists.

Fauci and those scientists never intended for the manipulated virus to escape the lab, but it did.

That’s why the Obama administration banned it here in the U.S., and that’s why Fauci has blood on his hands for ignoring those safety guidelines.

2. Fauci lied to the American public and to Congress in claiming that the outbreak came from a "wet market," rather than the Wuhan labs. 

Common sense and the scientific evidence clearly led to the conclusion that the origins of Covid as came from the Wuhan labs.

In fact, the CIA and the FBI concluded this very early on in the process, but Fauci was terrified that. if people found out that COVID came from the lab and research he was funding, he would be blamed for the outbreak.

So Fauci orchestrated a lie that it came from the wet market. 

The emails prove this, as many scientists on the email chain were claiming that it could not have come from the market and was likely from the lab.

Fauci worked with NIH chair Francis Collins to suppress these emails and prepared a bogus memo claiming it came from the wet market.

The memo was bought hook, line and sinker from a compliant media. Anyone disputing it was pressured to stand down or risk being ostracized as a quack or conspiracy monger, or worse, losing any grants in the pipeline. How many careers and reputations were destroyed by his lie?

3. Fauci lied about masks.

Early in the process, Fauci told the public that masks didn’t work and they should not seek them.

He later admitted that this was a lie because he didn’t want there to be a massive surge of masks purchased, thereby reducing the supply available to first responders.

He might’ve been well-intentioned, but his lie destroyed the credibility of the health system. Lies in these situations are never justified by their well-intentioned ends.

4. Fauci helped close our schools and economy - and then lied about it

For years, Fauci denied that he was telling state and local leaders to shut down the economy and the school systems.

But then his diary and his emails disclosed the truth.

He actually bragged that he spoke to both California Governor Gavin Newsom and then-New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and took pride in having convinced them that school closures were the proper way to go. His actions helped destroy our economy and created enormous damage to our youth.

Perhaps an early closure was justified, given the speed at which the virus was spreading and how little we knew about it. Caution was justified.

But it soon became clear that children and healthy young adults were at very low risk of succumbing to the virus. It was the elderly and the immunocompromised who had to be looked at the most. This was the conclusion of the 1,000 scientists and doctors signing the Great Barrington Declaration.

But even after it was clear from the evidence from Europe, which did not close schools, that children were not at risk, Fauci continued to parrot the teachers unions’ mantra that schools needed to remain closed.

5. Fauci pushed for mandates, even after he knew the shot didn’t stop the transmission of the virus.

If getting the Covid vaccine prevented an infected person from spreading it to others, a rational debate could be justified as to whether the shot should be mandated.

If your refusal to take the shot means that you’re more likely to infect me, that may be a rational reason to consider a mandate.

But once it was clear that the virus could be transmitted, even from those who got the shot, then what was the purpose of the mandate?

Was the Republican-dominated hearing politically charged? Indeed it was, just as all these hearings are.

But that doesn’t negate the fact that Dr. Fauci helped fund this virus and then lied about it. He helped keep our schools shuttered for an unnecessarily long time, and then lied about it. And equally disturbing is that these lies helped crater the public confidence in our healthcare system.

These are sins that cannot be ignored.

____________________________________________

Steve Levy is President of Common Sense Strategies, a political consulting firm. He served as Suffolk County Executive, as a NYS Assemblyman, and host of “The Steve Levy Radio Show.” He is the author of “Solutions to America’s Problems” and “Bias in the Media.” www.SteveLevy.info, X (formerly Twitter)  @SteveLevyNY, steve@commonsensestrategies.com