'His Hands Are Dirty In This': Josh Hawley Calls Out Dr. Fauci At COVID-19 Whistleblower Hearing

[0:00] Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Erdman, thank you for being here. In March of 2023, [0:05] the Senate unanimously passed legislation requiring the Office of the Director of [0:09] National Intelligence to declassify all, I believe the exact language is, declassify any [0:14] and all information related to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the [0:20] origins of COVID-19. I have some familiarity with this legislation because I wrote it. [0:24] It passed the House unanimously. President Biden signed it into law under, I think, popular [0:30] duress. As you may remember, well, first of all, are you familiar with this law? Of course, yes. As [0:36] you may recall, it set a statutory deadline of just a couple of months later, which the Biden [0:40] administration promptly ignored and blew through. When they finally did release the report, I think [0:44] we've got a picture of it here that will appear over my shoulder. It was all of five pages. Here [0:49] it is. Wait for it. Five pages. Remember, the law says any and all information. Five pages. [0:55] It's heavily redacted, even the five pages. I think one of those pages is like a cover, [1:00] a cover note or something. Yeah, here it is. The executive summary, five pages. This is, [1:05] according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, this is, this is any [1:09] and all information related to COVID-19 and the Wuhan Virology Lab. Now, you've been on this task [1:17] force that has reviewed these documents. Is this all the information the United States [1:23] government had? That is not all the information. And I'll tell you a little [1:27] story about that, if you'd like. Please. A story about your five pages there. So there [1:31] was a classified report being written at the time all of this was going on. And I [1:36] assumed, as I'm reading through the documents, that that they would just take [1:41] that classified report, which didn't look like that, and they would just redact it. [1:46] And because I'm reading through the documents, but that is not what happened. They decided to write [1:51] a different paper instead of what was already. Who do you say they? Who's they? The National [1:58] Intelligence Council. The National Intelligence Council was, was at the time that the law passed, [2:02] was, was doing a thorough review or doing a review. We don't know how thorough. How many, [2:07] how many pages you've been on this task force? You've gotten a sense of, if it's not five pages, [2:12] how many pages worth of information would you guess the United States government was in possession of [2:17] related to Wuhan lab and COVID possible links? I can tell you that Director Gabbard is working [2:24] through, I believe, 2,000 pages. 2,000? They're trying to get released in the, in the first batch. [2:29] This is a, the, the, the law states, yes, any and all, but there's still the requirement to run it [2:36] through the different agencies to ensure that there's not some sources and methods. But there's, [2:41] there's like 2,000 pages. 2,000 pages, 2,000 pages. I want to show you what Avril Haynes, [2:47] Director Haynes said to me when I wrote to her, Senator Braun and I wrote to her following this [2:51] outrageous, ridiculous report. She wrote back to me and said, well, we only, we classified, [2:57] we declassified only what we could without endangering sources and methods. Only, only what we could. [3:03] Five pages of summary that itself has redactions. The five pages have redactions. And you're telling me [3:09] there are literally thousands of documents. Why are they hiding all of this material? [3:16] I can tell you that the interagency process of declassification is highly bureaucratic. [3:21] And, uh, that is being worked. And I think you'll saw, you saw just a few days ago, [3:25] Director Gabbard released some information about the lab. [3:28] Was, was Director Haynes, Avril Haynes, was, was she involved in, in making the decision not to release [3:33] the material? I don't have any proof that she was involved in the direct decision. I have no [3:39] emails saying that directly, but. It's her, it was her, it was her office and it's her signature on the [3:45] letter to me. It's her office that sent the five pages. She's the one who said, this is what we [3:49] have. This is all we have. You're telling me there were 2,000 plus documents. No, I'm telling you that [3:53] the first swath of documents that we're looking to, there's many, many more than that. I got you [3:59] many, many more. Let, let me tell you what this, this so-called five page report, what it said [4:03] in its substance, to the extent there was any, they said, number one, that nothing that was [4:08] researched at the Wuhan lab could plausibly be a progenitor of SARS COVID-2. Number two, [4:14] they said there was no evidence of any research related incident involving Wuhan employees that [4:19] might've been related to the pandemic. Now in your experience, given what you have seen, [4:26] are those true statements? Some of that would have to be covered in classified, but no, they're [4:33] not true. If we wanted to get into details, I don't believe that's true. So the United States [4:39] government first deliberately violated a law passed by Congress signed by the president that ordered [4:45] them to release all information related to the Wuhan lab. Number one, number two, they then violated [4:51] the law again by withholding thousands and thousands of pages that they had at the time and [4:55] knew were covered by the law. Number three, the conclusions so-called they released to the [4:58] public are false. If that is not a coverup, I don't know what is. And if our elected officials [5:06] and unelected officials in this case, in the IC and ODNI, if they can get by with blatantly [5:13] violating the statutes of this country and lying to the American people, I'm sorry, but we don't [5:18] have a democracy anymore. I don't know what it is, but it's not a democracy because we, the people, [5:24] aren't in charge. These people are in charge and they're lying to us every single day. You said in [5:32] your opening statement that Dr. Fauci, speaking of someone who's not exactly a truth teller, [5:38] that Dr. Fauci intervened to put his thumb on the scale of what information the intelligence [5:45] community, the IC could review when they did their initial assessments of whether or not the Wuhan lab [5:51] was linked to COVID. What exactly did he do? So let me clarify that. So he reached in and he provided [5:59] this list of scientists and subject matter experts that we should talk to. And it's not like he's [6:06] saying, you will go talk to them. He doesn't have the power to do that technically. It's just that [6:11] the bureaucracy in place at the time was perfectly happy to pursue those recommendations, even when [6:18] there was a number of individuals who expressed concern saying at least one for sure that said, [6:24] are you sure we want to do this? He's, he's a policymaker and we need to have our intelligence [6:30] cycle. And he had a point of view, did he not? He certainly did. And what was that point of view? [6:34] Just refresh our memories. He, he believes it's natural origin. He still does. Of course. I mean, [6:40] he said this over and over. Now he would have reason to, given that he supported gain of function [6:45] research to the Wuhan lab, lied about it to Congress, lied about it repeatedly to the chairman, [6:49] as I recall. So his hands are dirty in this. And yet here he is intervening behind the scenes. It's [6:56] not, it's bad enough that he's out there misleading the public behind the scenes. He's trying to [7:00] intervene to stop our own intelligence community who are supposed to work for the public from actually [7:05] accurately assessing the evidence. This is unbelievable. This is unbelievable. And then people [7:11] wonder, gee, why are the American people not trustworthy, not trusting of elected officials? I wonder, [7:16] why are they, I'll tell you why, because they're repeatedly, we are repeatedly lied to by these [7:23] people lied to and lied to and lied to. I want to thank you, Mr. Edmund, for your testimony. [7:28] I just want to note, I think we've only scratched the surface here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, [7:32] for calling this hearing. And I just want to point out when you've got a witness who's saying under [7:36] oath that the, the report that the government issued lied to the American people, that it is false. [7:42] We've got a big problem in this country. We've got a big, big problem and we haven't begun to solve it [7:48] yet. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Moody.