Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), arrives for a closed-door interview with the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic at the U.S. Capitol Jan. 8, 2024, in Washington, DC.
Anthony Fauci, the public face of the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, will offer his first congressional testimony in nearly two years Monday by a GOP-led committee likely to grill him over alleged misconduct that occurred under his leadership of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
Fauci, the NIAID director for nearly 40 years, will testify before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. It’s his first testimony since leaving government work at the end of 2022.
The last time he testified before Congress was in September 2022, when he appeared before the Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to discuss the response to the mpox response along with other health officials.
Fauci did return to the Capitol earlier this year for two days of closed-door interviews with the subcommittee. Transcripts of those all-day interviews were published Friday ahead of the hearing.
His testimony comes on the heels of two highly contentious hearings before the subcommittee that raised questions over the level of oversight and conduct that went on in his agency, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic that raised him to public prominence.
Here’s what to know ahead of what could be a testy hearing.
Public records controversy
Fauci is likely to get tough questions from Republicans about what he knew of efforts by another NIAID official accused of evading public records laws.
Over the past month, the select subcommittee has taken testimony from EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak and David Morens, a senior adviser to the NIAID director who worked closely with Fauci.
Morens’s testimony did little to endear Republicans to Fauci. Previously publicized emails from Morens suggested Fauci knew of public records misconduct at NIAID and sought to detach himself from it.
In one email exchange with Daszak, Morens wrote, “… there is no worry about FOIAs. I can either send stuff to Tony on his private gmail, or hand it to him at work or at his house. He is too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble.”
In another email, Morens told Daszak that Fauci was seeking to protect EcoHealth from scrutiny, though in other emails, he indicated that the former NIAID director wasn’t particularly involved in National Institutes of Health grants. Morens testified before the subcommittee that Fauci did not comment when asked in a conversation between them whether he had a hand in getting rid of a grant for EcoHealth.
