Why a pardon for Anthony Fauci?

Full presidential preemptive pardon for Anthony Fauci by Joe Biden – what is it for and why does it go back to 2014?

In December, after 2 years of investigation, the US House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic concluded that Covid-19 measures did more harm than good. We wrote extensively about the report here and here.

Coercive measures led to serious harm

The Congressional Committee concluded that the mandatory six-foot social distance requirement during the C19 crisis had no scientific basis. The report also stated that the effectiveness of any type of face mask in controlling the spread of the virus was close to zero. Therefore, such coercive measures had a negative impact on people's mental health and especially on children's development.

Antony Fauci led the US response to Covid-19 as the President's medical advisor and has been the main face behind these measures. He has repeatedly claimed that masks and social distancing work, end of story:

The Congressional inquiry also concluded that C19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates caused more harm than good. Lockdowns harmed the economy and people's health. Vaccine mandates caused massive collateral damage and denied the unvaccinated a normal life – they were deprived of many services, the ability to move freely in public spaces, and in many cases were not allowed to work and lost their careers. The report makes the case that the mandates were very likely counterproductive and acknowledges the fact that they were not supported by science.

Fauci repeatedly claimed that vaccines would stop the transmission of the virus and endorsed vaccine mandates and restrictions on individual freedoms to supposedly end the C19 crisis:

While these claims misled the public, were unsupported by evidence, and caused much harm, the people who pardoned Fauci were probably concerned about something else. The pardon seems to relate to the period between 2014 and 2020, and Fauci's role in the gain-of-function research on lab-engineered coronaviruses.

Gain-of-function research on viruses

Several US health officials, including Fauci, have maintained that Covid-19 is of natural origin. But a key conclusion of the Congressional Committee was that dangerous virus research in Wuhan, China was the most likely source of Covid-19 and Covid-19 had biological characteristics not found in nature.

Fauci was the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which had been funding experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology since 2014. According to several experts, it is possible that the Covid-19 virus was developed with the support of these grants. Fauci and several others have denied this possibility.

Former CDC director Dr Robert Redfield has stated that Fauci misled the public and the Congress about gain-of-function research by changing the interpretation of such research.

The scientific community has gone to great lengths to deny the laboratory origin of the Covid virus. Notably, as early as March 2020, The Lancet published an open letter from 27 renowned scientists: "We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 has no natural origin."

It later emerged that 26 of the 27 scientists who signed the letter in that prestigious scientific journal had direct professional links and connections with the Wuhan research lab, i.e. a conflict of interest:

US Senator Rand Paul has questioned Fauci several times about the origin of C19, the US-funded gain-of-function research and the collaboration with the Wuhan lab in Red China. He has warned Fauci that lying to Congress is a crime. Fauci has denied his involvement, but has not provided relevant answers.

There is clearly much to be revealed about the consequences of gain-of-function research and the motives behind it. Could this have been the main reason why Antony Fauci was preemptively pardoned by Joe Biden on his last day in office?