Autopen pardons aside, the nation deserves answers on the Fauci files
Key takeaways
- On June 19, Tulsi Gabbard, the decorated Army combat veteran and former Democratic presidential candidate, used her final day as Director of National Intelligence to drop a grenade.
- The documents appear to bolster longstanding claims that Fauci had funded dangerous viral gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
- In announcing the release, Gabbard referred to it as years of lies, censorship, and cover-ups.
Why this matters: political developments that affect policy direction and public trust.
Anthony Fauci in 2021. On June 19, Tulsi Gabbard, the decorated Army combat veteran and former Democratic presidential candidate, used her final day as Director of National Intelligence to drop a grenade.
Gabbard declassified hundreds of pages of communications and documents that suggest Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, allegedly manipulated the intelligence community to misinform the public about COVID-19 and its origins.
The documents appear to bolster longstanding claims that Fauci had funded dangerous viral gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. As COVID began to spread, he worked with politicized factions within the U.S. intelligence community to suppress evidence that the pandemic was the result of a lab leak. He allegedly lied about this under oath before Congress in 2024.