Dr Anthony Fauci was accused of lying Sunday after claims he falsely denied knowing the reasons behind President Trumps's decision to cut funding to the Chinese lab accused of releasing COVID-19.
The White House's chief medical advisor initially resisted Trump's order to halt taxpayer funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology in April 2020, according to an upcoming book, before telling a house committee in June that he 'didn't know the reason' behind the then-president's decision.
However, Fauci's account is contradicted by 'verbatim' quotes which show he was fully aware Trump took the decision out of concern about the lab's safety record and fears it was the source of the COVID pandemic, included in the new book 'Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration's Response to the Pandemic That Changed History' by Washington Post journalists Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta.
Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., told Fox News: 'Dr. Fauci is so obsessed with maintaining his own relevance and downplaying President Trump's role in combatting this crisis that he's once again been caught lying.
Fauci, who leads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, at first resisted a White House directive to cancel a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to EcoHealth Alliance — a nonprofit conducting research on coronaviruses that had previously worked with the Wuhan lab.
