NIAID Director Targeted by GA Representative

On June 4, 2021 Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) sent a letter to President Joe Biden calling for an investigation into the origins of the novel Coronavirus, which she described as a “manufactured plague” and “Chinese-made virus.” The letter also called for the removal of the Director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Anthony Fauci, whoRepresentative Greene accused of  misleading Congress and “ the American public regarding the origins, transmission, and mortality of the COVID-19 pandemic.” Representative Greene did not provide any evidence to support these claims. Nevertheless, she demanded that “Dr. Fauci . . . be removed from his position” and threatened that, if the Biden “administration does not act to remove Dr. Fauci, we will consider filing impeachment articles against him on the grounds of misleading Congress and perjury.”  

On June 9, 2021 Greene appeared as a guest on Steve Bannon’s War Room: Pandemic podcast where she accused Dr. Fauci of being “criminally liable” for funding research leading to the creation of what she called the COVID-19 “bioweapon.” These accusations originate from a belief that Dr. Fauci funded “gain-of-function” research on the novel Coronavirus at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a type of research which could increase transmissibility of a virus to humans. Greene defended her position by citing her disbelief in evolution, arguing that human intervention is the only pathway by which the virus could have spread to humans. Dr. Fauci denied that he or NIAID allotted any funds for gain-of-function research at WIV, as well as articulating his belief that the novel Coronavirus was most likely first transmitted between an animal and a human, rather than introduced into the human population through accidental exposure of researchers at WIV.