00:00 I recognize Ms. Malliotakis from New York for five minutes of questions.
00:03 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:04 I think many of us in the committee are really disturbed by revelations to this committee
00:09 that there were officials at NIH that deleted government records, they deleted personal
00:15 or they used personal information, personal emails to communicate and circumvent freedom
00:19 of information laws.
00:22 So I just had a couple questions about that.
00:24 Dr. Fauci, did you delete any emails or records related to the Wuhan lab or the origins of
00:29 the virus?
00:30 No, I did not.
00:32 Okay.
00:33 Dr. Morin's said in a May 2021 email, he indicated that he was connecting people to you in a
00:42 quote secret back channel.
00:44 Do you know what he was referring to?
00:46 I don't have any idea what he's talking about.
00:49 There is no back channel at NIAID.
00:51 Okay.
00:52 There is, he also said in another email that there is no worry about freedom of information
00:57 act.
00:58 I can send stuff to Tony on his private email.
01:04 Did you communicate with anyone relating to anything regarding NIH or with Dr. Morin's
01:10 on a private email?
01:11 I do not do government business on my private email.
01:15 Okay.
01:16 So, have you communicated with Dr. Morin's via private email, even if it was not necessarily
01:22 your definition of government business?
01:24 It might have been because as I mentioned in my opening statement, one of his functions
01:29 is to write chapters, medical scientific chapters with me.
01:33 So it is conceivable that I communicated with him on my private email when we were writing
01:38 a chapter and that was not official.
01:40 What about Peter Daszak?
01:41 No.
01:42 Okay.
01:43 I just want to clarify for the record, because today you testified that you did not suppress
01:48 the lab leak theory, yet in the past you have said, quote, it is a distortion of reality,
01:52 unquote.
01:53 I have heard these conspiracy theories and like all conspiracy theories, they are just
01:58 conspiracy theories.
02:00 That is what you told the American people.
02:02 And so would you like to clarify what science were you following then versus now?
02:05 No.
02:06 Actually, I have also been very, very clear and said multiple times that I do not think
02:11 the concept of there being a lab leak is inherently a conspiracy theory.
02:18 What is conspiracy is the kind of distortions of that particular subject.
02:24 Like it was a lab leak and I was parachuted into the CIA like Jason Bourne and told the
02:31 CIA that they should really not be talking about a lab leak.
02:36 Thank you.
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