The New York Times Confronts Anthony Fauci with Anthony Fauci

Even when his own emails are put in front of him, Fauci dissembles on the pandemic.

4 minute read

“Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science,” Anthony Fauci said, blasting his critics during a 2021 interview about his advice on the pandemic. “All of the things I have spoken about, consistently, from the very beginning, have been fundamentally based on science. Sometimes those things were inconvenient truths for people.”

So last week, a New York Times columnist confronted Fauci with facts fundamentally based on science: Anthony Fauci’s own words. As Fauci himself might say, sometimes those things are inconvenient truths for people.

For the last several years, Anthony Fauci has been telling Fauci-friendly reporters that he has always kept an open mind about how the pandemic started. The pandemic could have started naturally, or it could have started from a lab in Wuhan, China.

Not true, noted the New York Times.

As the Times pointed out, Fauci dismissed the possibility of a lab accident as a “conspiracy theory” on a February 9, 2020, podcast with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich:

“There’s a sort of urban legend,” Mr. Gingrich prodded Dr. Fauci, “that there’s a biological warfare center in Wuhan and that the coronavirus escaped from that.”

“I’ve heard these conspiracy theories,” Dr. Fauci replied. “And like all conspiracy theories, Newt, they’re just conspiracy theories.” He added that while he could not say that scenario was impossible, “the things you’re hearing are still in the realm of conspiracy theories without any scientific basis.”

If this sounds familiar to readers of The DisInformation Chronicle, that’s because I uncovered this podcast and reported on it back in December. Nonetheless, it’s great to see the New York Times catching up.

The Times also caught Fauci helping to orchestrate a March 2020 study published in Nature Medicine by lead author Kristian Andersen that downplayed the possibility of a lab accident. As the Times pointed out, after helping orchestrate this paper, Fauci then promoted it during a White House press conference.

Then, in April 2020, Dr. Fauci pointed White House reporters to the publication, presenting it as compelling evidence of zoonotic crossover — without revealing that he had been involved with its creation and had even, according to the emails, given it his approval. (Dr. Fauci told me that he’s not sure he ever got around to reading the paper.)

If this sounds familiar to readers of The DisInformation Chronicle, that’s because I reported on Fauci’s orchestration of the paper and promotion at a White House press conference also back in December. Nonetheless, it’s great to see the New York Times catching up. (Note to readers: There’s an old saying in this profession, “You haven’t made it in journalism until the New York Times rips you off.”)

As for Fauci telling the New York Times that he’s not sure he got around to reading the paper, here’s what Fauci emailed back to the author who sent him the paper: “Thanks for the note. Nice job on the paper.”

But this is far from the first time Fauci has been caught misremembering things. It’s just the first time the New York Times has deigned to confront him on his dissembling. For more on Fauci confronted by Fauci, see this video.