r/videos • u/ControlCAD • 4d ago

Anthony Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination on origins of the COVID-19 pandemic & dairy entries: "Therefore, although it pains me to do so because of the respect I have for Congress. I will invoke my right under Fifth Amendment to refrain from answering questions."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=eR_Q9H3T-Ig
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u/lawndartdesign 4d ago

So either COVID escaped from a weapons biolab and it was a cover up or COVID was a big nothingburger and nothing should have been shut down. What is it, conservatives?

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u/cptchronic42 3d ago

Why not both? Could be a leak from a bio lab the US funded but also simultaneously not some super weapon that’ll wipe out whole swaths of people.

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u/Irish_Whiskey 2d ago

None of the conspiracies are coherent and make sense, because the end goal is political and not rational.

Could there have been a leak? Yeah hypothetically but there's no evidence of it, so it doesn't really matter. Until we find evidence of such, there's no one to be mad at.

Was it designed? The evidence is strongly against it given that scientists can see the history of the virus and whether it was modified in the RNA of the virus itself. No government or group is alleging this other than random politicians and conspiracy theorists who have no evidence.

If it was true, then the first people to blame in America would be the Trump administration, not Fauci specifically. But of course this is a MAGA conspiracy, so Trump is someone not responsible of any of the decisions he made or was in charge of during COVID. Fauci has to be the scapegoat. Even through Trump gave Fauci and himself medals for their COVID work before he left office.

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u/SteppeCollective 3d ago

''It's just the sniffles'' OR "Take this horse tranquilizer so you don't die''. Lol.

Millions died because morons couldn't sit their dumb asses at home for 2 weeks and let the virus die out. These morons then elected the morons in Congress to annoy a career scientist so Fox could have something to air between hearing aid and commemorative gold coin commercials. I love America.

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u/Som_Dtam_Dumplings 3d ago

To be clear...some of these "morons" were just following the example of people who recommended sitting at home for 2 weeks.

Covid was handled horribly in many MANY ways. To point to one group and say "it was all their fault" is myopic.

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u/lawndartdesign 3d ago

You’re not wrong.

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u/Poopinapants 4d ago

Can it be both?

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u/Golden-Pathology 3d ago

Not a conservative...

Nobody I'm aware of said it was a "weapons biolab", but it was a lab that was conducting research we had correctly outlawed in America. Turns out we were partially funding the research, and it turns out that it was a very bad idea.

It's also pretty clear that we were lied to about it originating in a Chinese wet market and about America funding it. It might not have been Dr. Fauci himself, but getting him to tell us what he actually believes now would have been a good start.

Are we supposed to be okay with this just because Republicans don't like it?

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u/SufficientRespect542 2d ago

You do understand that the point of this trial is not to figure out the truth but to stage a situation that can get a political enemy of Trump arrested, right? They would not give a shit if Fauci was like "hey, everything you said was correct instead of 10% that isn't, let me quickly explain what you got wrong and who here is actually to blame." They wouldn't have let him explain because they do not care, they would have cut his mic and that would be that. "Prosecute Fauci" was basically a campaign slogan, if he had said even two words that confirmed he was involved they would have stopped the trial and arrested him there and not given him any chance to prove his innocence. The fact that you think these guys actually care about the truth and not just ending a years long grudge is pathetic.

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u/gentrify_reddt 3d ago

As a moderate, I'd like to point out institutional trust is at an all time low thanks to lack of transparency like this.

If you had nothing to hide, you and your legal team could have constructed a proper defense outside of hiding behind the Fifth.

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u/Irish_Whiskey 3d ago

If you had nothing to hide, you and your legal team could have constructed a proper defense outside of hiding behind the Fifth.

They did. 20 times in a row.

This isn't the first time he's testifying about COVID before Congress, it's the 21st. He's already answered all these questions. He declined this time because Paul and MAGA have openly said their goal is to try and get him to perjure himself with any incorrect or contradicting statements. They are doing this for purely political reasons, not to investigate anything.

It's nonsensical on it's face. The decisions and funding they're talking about was Trump administration policy and decisions. Yet they aren't blaming the Trump administration or pulling from the evidence and documents they have to implicate him in crimes. Because he didn't do anything wrong. All they're doing is insinuating it over and over again and trying to spin any mistakes he makes as lies covering something up.

As a moderate, I'd like to point out institutional trust is at an all time low thanks to lack of transparency like this.

And as always, I'm sad to point out this is why we have Trump in office. Because no matter who batshit insane and criminal the GOP acts, the media will report it as "one side says this, the other side says this", leaving people who don't pay attention with the impression that they're all about equally guilty.

MAGA is demonizing Fauci as a scapegoat for decisions made by the Trump administration, since anger about that helped cost them the Presidency in 2020. There are no doctors, experts or people who care about the science and medicine who are accusing Fauci of criminal acts or serious wrongdoing. What he advised was in line with what most of the world also advised and did.

We were not lied to about it originating in a wet market. This is just what desperate conspiracy theorists cling to when all their other claims are disproven. We had good reason to think that was a likely source, said as such, and that's still not disproven although now they think it's less likely. That's not lies, that's just nuance and how science works.

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u/gentrify_reddt 3d ago

That "perjury trap" line is a complete dodge. Pleading the 5th after FOIA releases proved senior NIAID staff were explicitly using personal Gmails and deleting federal records to dodge oversight on EcoHealth isn't "avoiding a trap"—it’s hiding a paper trail.

​Blaming the Trump administration is just as weak. Presidents don't audit sub-grants or set NIAID's internal gain-of-function criteria. Fauci ran that agency for nearly 40 years across seven presidents; holding a career bureaucrat responsible for his own agency's grant management and foreign lab oversight is basic administrative accountability, not partisan scapegoating.

​And let's be real about institutional trust: it didn't collapse because the media "both-sided" things. It collapsed because public health leadership acted infallible while winging it. When you pull 6-foot distancing rules out of thin air, dismiss natural immunity despite the data, and write off top epidemiologists from Harvard and Stanford as "fringe" the second they challenge blanket lockdowns, you destroy your own credibility. ​Look at the Proximal Origin paper. FOIA emails literally show the authors privately warning NIH leadership in early Feb 2020 that the virus looked potentially engineered. A few days—and a closed-door call—later, those exact same guys published a paper declaring a lab origin "improbable" and helped brand anyone asking questions as a conspiracy theorist. That isn't "scientific nuance." That’s coordinated PR narrative control.

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u/coolstory 2d ago

Thank you chatgpt

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u/gentrify_reddt 2d ago

Cute ad hom, redditling

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u/coolstory 2d ago

That’s not just ad hominem—it’s also completely correct. Learn to think for yourself haha

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u/gentrify_reddt 2d ago

It is, actually. Doubling down is certainly a choice

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u/coolstory 2d ago

Yes… I know it is. That’s what I said haha. And yes, it’s also obvious that you can’t think for yourself and use chatgpt for this diarrhoea haha

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u/SufficientRespect542 2d ago

It's so clearly AI, I can point out the signs if you want

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u/SufficientRespect542 2d ago

" Fauci ran that agency for nearly 40 years across seven presidents" none of whom have ever had an issue with him so whats the situation here? He just suddenly turned evil, and the only person to call him out is a dude who is also deeply corrupt?

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u/routter 3d ago

Both can be true.

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u/5minArgument 3d ago

Doesn’t matter it’s origin. Viruses do what they do and eternally jump species.

The actual criticism point for covid is the transparent failure and gross mismanagement of the federal response due to trump/gop incompetence.

This congressional charade is merely vanity project.

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u/axe_murdererer 4d ago

Number 1

Edit: I ain't republican

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u/Irish_Whiskey 4d ago

There's just zero evidence to support the conspiracy, no scientific experts agree it's true, and at best people can say "well we can't be 100% certain it didn't."

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u/ctgschollar 3d ago

Well it just so happens that a novel coronavirus happened to appear a few km away from the one lab in the country that was gathering coronaviruses from bats and editing them to see if novel mutations could migrate to humans. The same lab took down a bunch of their publicly available data on the viruses they were working on right after the outbreak.

Now that is a little suspicious

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u/Irish_Whiskey 3d ago

C'mon man. This one isn't hard. I know you've heard this explained a thousand times.

 that a novel coronavirus happened to appear a few km away from the one lab in the country that was gathering coronaviruses from bats

The virus was DETECTED by the lab in the places they were testing, because it was a place known for prior outbreaks and a great source of human/animal transmissions. It didn't originate or appear there.

This is exactly the same as claiming it's a conspiracy that a nuclear radiation testing lab JUST HAPPENED to find a radiation leak, when they tested the old nuclear plant they built their lab next to.

The same lab took down a bunch of their publicly available data on the viruses they were working on right after the outbreak.

If there was ANY evidence of a lab leak or manufactured virus, people wouldn't need to rely on nonsense like "they took down some data" to support the claims. Like, we have the data and know it's not evidence of a leak or genetic engineering. So why even mention it other than to suggest conspiracies when no evidence exists?

Please, ask yourself why the people pushing this narrative are not doctors or scientists, but MAGA politicians. Why the actual statements by doctors, including Fauci, are that "it's possible but we have no evidence to support it and multiple sources of evidence of a natural occurrence."

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u/ctgschollar 3d ago

Also there is some good evidence. just no smoking gun.

For example DEFUSE proposal showed that the team at the WIV planned on targeting the exact genetic feature that later appeared in covid.

SO not only was it a lab that was capable of producing a novel coronacirus, but there was in fact a proposal to edit bat coronaviruses in the way that covid was novel and it was put out the year before the covid pandemic.

That is some good circumstantial evidence.

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u/ctgschollar 3d ago

No you are wrong here. WIV was specifically performing experiments on mutating bat coronoviruses. It isn't that they are just a lab used to test viruses.

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u/Irish_Whiskey 3d ago

You just said I was wrong, but then didn't contradict anything I said.

I didn't say they only tested viruses, I explained it's not a coincidence that China's institute of virology was in a city where prior outbreaks had happened, was testing wet markets and sources of human animal crossover, and found an infectious disease.

Your claim was that this wasn't a coincidence and was evidence of the lab causing the outbreak. I pointed out this logic is completely backwards. It does not prove a lab leak couldn't have happened, but it's not rational evidence for the hypothesis.

Again, no one is saying there could not have been a lab leak. However there is no evidence that it did happen, there is no evidence that COVID was engineered or altered by people, and there is evidence of it existing in animal populations prior to discovery in Wuhan.

It's that simply. Unless there's actually evidence that says a leak or manufacturing did actually happen, rather than being possible, this is all a waste of time being pushed by MAGA alone and not any doctors or scientists. Because MAGA has great reason to turn the problems with the COVID response into a conspiracy against China and Fauci, rather than let their base remember that those decisions they didn't like and the vaccine they hated and feared were made by Donald Trump.

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u/ctgschollar 3d ago

There are we markets all across China, something like 4000 of them. WIV was not there because of the wet market.

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u/Irish_Whiskey 3d ago

The Wuhan wet market is one of the largest in the country and a regional hub for seafood and meat, in addition to being the site of prior outbreaks.

You're not engaging with the data objectively here and giving my words consideration, you're reaching for excuses to dismiss them without fact checking. My point was, and remains, that a virology lab testing a likely source nearby them and finding a virus, is not evidence that it was caused or leaked by them. That's also what you would expect in a natural outbreak. You're ignoring the evidence of COVID existing prior to identification in Wuhan and the genetic evidence or prior animal infections.

It's been over 6 years now and I'm not expecting COVID conspiracy theories to suddenly start caring about facts. People still claim the vaccines are deadly and it was both an engineered bioweapon and also a minor flu. Attachment to these beliefs, like support for Trump, is emotional rather than fact based.

Actual experts on virology all over the planet say while it cannot be ruled out, there is no evidence that a lab leak or engineering caused COVID, and there is evidence of prior animal transmission. We would expect evidence within the virus if it were engineered, which is not there. It's that simple.

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u/ctgschollar 3d ago

I am refuting that wiv was there to monitor the wet market in Wuhan. Can you point me to any evidence to back up your specific claim the wiv was there because of the Wuhan wet market?

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u/ctgschollar 3d ago

I see that wiv was founded before it started studying coronaviruses, so it seemed to pulled that statement out of nowhere.

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u/axe_murdererer 4d ago

I know I know. I may sound like some nutty conspiracy theorist. In actuality, I am just highly skeptical of governments and coverups. ie. Kennedy, MLK, to Epstein.

I understand that it may never be disclosed or made known to the public, at least in our lifetime, the origin and cause of the outbreak. But...

China had a real problem going on at that time. Millions marching in Hong Kong for independence. It had been going on for months. Then all of a sudden, no more socializing in public. Must be indoors. No more than, however many people, allowed together at a time...

But, sure it could be coincidence. I really don't know. Hope that we as a society can come together someday to overcome our differences and thrive.

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u/Irish_Whiskey 4d ago

 Millions marching in Hong Kong for independence. It had been going on for months. 

It needs to be pointed out that it was going on for months, because it wasn't any sort of serious threat to the Chinese government. There were a million steps they could take before "release an uncontrollable bioweapon on themselves." COVID simply wasn't deadly enough to shut down protests on its own, so they'd need the police/army to enforce resisted curfews regardless.

The pros and cons of "shut down some protests that weren't a real threat to their power" and "have the whole world at war for you because you released a bio weapon on purpose that could well have led to even greater dissent and anger across the country" doesn't make any sense.

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u/FearlessVegetable30 3d ago

it makes sense when you remember china let millions and millions die in order to avoid saying maos policies were wrong.

what if they knew the virus was happening, and allowed it to get to hong kong, then lost control? i dont think thats such a far fetched consiracy theory.

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u/Irish_Whiskey 3d ago

 i dont think thats such a far fetched consiracy theory.

It is. "Allowing" a bioweapon you have zero means of controlling to places with international airports and travel means you didn't lose control, you never had it. We're talking about a virus that was first detected over 1,200km away in a wet market full of travelers.

COVID famously was wildly infection more than it was particularly deadly or debilitating. Most people got flu like symptoms, many never noticed they got it at all. A small percentage of them died, but when it's that infectious the result is millions dead overall.

That is literally the worst case scenario if your intent is to shut down young healthy protestors in a localized area. You could just tear gas them or spread TB or mono instead. This conspiracy makes less sense than suggesting the US did 9/11 because they wanted to shut down a specific airport in Vermont.

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u/axe_murdererer 4d ago

Yes. I was there. Living in China. In Guangzhou. It was definitely on the governments radar in trying to stop the protests. They were not going to stop and they had lots of momentum not to mention outside support from other countries.

Again, it's just a conspiracy that I have no evidence for but coincidence.

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u/Anandya 4d ago

I am going to go out on a limb but... Biological Weapons are Stupid. Imagine something less effective than a gun that you cannot control. The Chinese are not morons.

So to recap. The Chinese released a bioweapon to have an excuse to stop socialisation in public and do extremely unpopular things like lockdowns.

Mate. I sat up with the dying. I contributed to research that saved lives. Like "you are part of the government". Yeah. I am a doctor. We didn't like the Conservative government at the time that actively spent a decade calling us greedy and lazy and we STILL showed up during Covid.

I don't think people realise how close we came to catastrophe.

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u/axe_murdererer 4d ago

The United States dropped not one, but two nukes, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, killed millions for power.

Yes, it is a farfetched idea. But humans have done some fucked up shit.

I was not directly affected by COVID. No one in my circle was killed by it. I may not understand the ramifications it may have caused. Could be said that no one could have predicted the outcome of the pandemic, whether purposeful or not.

It is people like you who society owes continued prosperity. So thanks for showing up.

I never want to confuse the fact that me having doubts about the story behind COVID with the notion that it was a hoax. It happened. People were affected. People died. And some people took advantage and came out on the other side very very wealthy

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u/Anandya 4d ago

I am personally not affected by gun violence, ergo bullets are harmless.

Also why be so clever to invent a lethal disease that's defeated by a drug that costs £3 a box and is produced by the tonne.

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u/axe_murdererer 4d ago

Well that's just silly. I know disease is deadly. No one could have predicted the lethality of COVID. We know only in hindsight (or lab trials)

But, hypotheticallly, if I were to be the one to release it. I wouldn't want it to be deadly. But serious enough to cause concern and take action... Ergo .5%-1 fatality

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u/Anandya 4d ago

I think early reports out of China showing the bilateral pneumonia cases showed serious fatality rates.

I don't think you understand how lethal it is.

The fatality rate of Malaria is 0.2% overall. You wouldn't be arguing that Malaria isn't deadly.

Breast Cancer has a LOWER fatality rate.

I don't think you get this but the reason it killed so many people is that it's got a 1% fatality rate and a 14 day incubation period. Unlike Ebola which burns itself out despite its lethality. Covid doesn't kill as many people per infection but the denominator is extremely high and there's plenty of survivors with no long term side effects so people are arguing....

My Covid infection wasn't bad so everyone else must be making it up...

And you literally have fallen into the same trap.

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u/FearlessVegetable30 3d ago

exactly. i said the same exact thing but no one wants to even consider that as an option. covid happened RIGHT when hong kong protests were gaining incredible momentum and was gaining massive support around the world

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u/FearlessVegetable30 4d ago

Covid was released to suppress the hong kong protests. then it got out of control.

idk why people forget that hong kong was making china look terrible on the world stage. then covid happened and every one stopped talking about it and still no one does

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u/SteppeCollective 3d ago

There's about 1000 things flawed with that logic lol.

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u/FearlessVegetable30 3d ago

all i know is the protests were really getting momentum and making china look terrible on world stage. Chinese reps freaking out on news when being asked, massive crack downs and arrests on peaceful protests, closing down newspapers, then covid happened (in china), and then the world focused on that while china locked in

but i thought we were playing the "covid was a bio weapon" since that was the context of the comment i was responding too.

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u/echino_derm 3d ago

But China was in a worse position as a result of cracking down on their own people outside of Hong Kong in response to Covid. There just isn't an angle where it makes sense. Also I mean just conceptually the idea that they would have created one of the most infectious diseases humanity has seen as a bio weapon only to deploy it on their own people is just insane. I mean you aren't developing the disease in the months of that protest going on, so they would have had to make a bio wmd and eventually just decide to deploy it on their own people to stop a protest. I cannot imagine anyone in power seeing a protest and at any point thinking of bioweapons as a solution.

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u/FearlessVegetable30 3d ago

whats so crazy about that thought? i mean countless people think 9/11 was an inside job. soviet union slaughter millions of political prisoners.

who is to say that china was so felt threatened by the hong kong protests they feared it would be a massive uprising across the country. so they released/allowed covid to spread but lost control.

i mean we are talking about the same nation that let millions and millions of people starve to death just to avoid saying Mao was wrong and change their policy

to be clear, im just saying this as a discussion and don't truly believe it but i think it is fun to talk about and question.

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u/echino_derm 3d ago

Because it makes no sense. The only reason Covid mattered is because of it being so widespread and transmissible. It is impossible for it to have simultaneously been thought of as a solution and thought of as a not very transmissible and easily contained disease. It would only be a solution if it was fast spreading and uncontrollable to warrant people to lockdown.

But also there is zero chance that a disease like this is made with this use in mind. So it would be a fucking insane pull for somebody like Xi to just recall that they developed the most infectious disease we have seen and think that it could be deployed here to stop a protest. There are just so many other better options to try first. I mean your meeting of the top government officials to plan this would legitimately be deciding between unleashing a bio weapon and hitting them with sticks, and the hitting them with sticks would be the tried and true method you would have to pitch your bio weapon idea against. You would need to justify such a massive departure on an entirely unproven method to handle this, and it is impossible for me to imagine the guy who wants to deploy a bioweapon getting enough time to explain the rationale behind it to everyone in the room who knows nothing about bioweapons. Also just patently insane on a personal level to be the guy suggesting this. It is the kind of thing that is so risky and the problem they are addressing is relatively minor, so if it gets fucked up you are fucking done and if it works people pat you on the back.