Marjorie Taylor Greene Refuses To Call Fauci A ‘Doctor’And Is Chided By Fellow RepublicanIn Explosive Hearing – Forbes

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., refused to address Dr. Anthony Fauci as doctor and called for him to be jailed during an, at times, explosive hearing before Congress on the origins of Covid-19as Republicans continue to demonize the federal governments former top infectious disease expert in their probe into the governments response to the pandemic.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., holds up a picture of Anthony Fauci, former director of the ... [+] National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, with his mask down, while questioning him during the House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on Coronavirus Pandemic hearing titled "A Hearing with Dr. Anthony Fauci," in Rayburn building on Monday, June 3, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Greene told Fauci youre not a doctor, youre Mr. Fauci in my few minutes, adding that his medical license should be revoked and he should be in prison for crimes against humanity, citing mask mandates.

Greene delivered the attacks as she accused Fauci and government agencies of making up guidelines, like six-feet distancing and masking of children, questioning whether the American people deserve to be abused like that?

Officials like Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have recently acknowledged the six-foot social distancing recommendation was not based on medical data, with Fauci telling Congress in a closed-door interview in January the Centers for Disease Control made the recommendation as an empiric decision that wasnt based on data, according to a transcript of the interview released Friday.

Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, who is a podiatric doctor and chairs the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, reprimanded Greene in response to the attack, instructing her to refer to Fauci as doctor and adhere by committee rules of decorum, to which she responded Im not addressing him as doctor.

Fauci voluntarily agreed to testify in the hearing, which marks his first public appearance on Capitol Hill since he left government in 2022.

Republicans have zeroed in on the notion that the virus causing Covid-19 originated from a lab leak in Wuhan, China, a theory Fauci and medical experts have said is unlikely, but not improbable. Republicans have accused Fauci of trying to downplay the lab leak theory because a nonprofit virus-hunting research organization, EcoHealth Alliance, received grants from the National Institute of Health and subcontracted with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Covid-19 wasnt created by bats in a wet market . . . it was manufactured in a lab funded by Fauci. He tried to cover it up, Greene said last year. Some of the research methods ostensibly used at the lab in Wuhan are controversial and considered risky, but no direct evidence has emerged linking that research to the coronavirus, and federal officials say the viruses studied by EcoHealth Alliance were genetically distinct from the virus that causes Covid-19. Republicans have also questioned whether Fauci flouted public records laws by sending emails from his personal account, pointing to an email one of his senior advisers, Dr. David Morens, sent to other scientists explaining that Fauci was aware of including sensitive information in emails that could be leaked, writing I can either send stuff to Tony on his private gmail, or hand it to him at work or his house. Fauci denied the accusation in his opening statement Monday, stating that to the best of my knowledge I have never conducted official business via my personal email.

Fauci said it was absolutely false and simply preposterous to accuse him of attempting to cover up the lab leak theory in his opening statement, in which he read an email he sent to another scientist detailing his instructions for an investigation into the theory. It is inconceivable that anyone who reads this email could conclude that I was trying to cover up the possibility of a lab leak. I have always kept an open mind to the different possibilities, Fauci told the committee.

The federal government suspended funding to EcoHealth Alliance last month after the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general released an audit alleging the NIH failed to properly monitor how the grant money was facilitating research at the lab in Wuhan.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene Refuses To Call Fauci A 'Doctor'And Is Chided By Fellow RepublicanIn Explosive Hearing - Forbes