Sen. Marshall should have better things to do than harassing Dr. Fauci | Opinion
After Sen. Roger Marshall called this week for a special counsel to investigate Dr. Anthony Fauci’s role in the COVID-19 pandemic, I called one of Kansas’ leading experts in infectious diseases to see what he thought.
Dr. Thomas Moore said he thinks Marshall’s primary motivation is political, an effort to score points with the subset of Kansas voters opposed to vaccination in general, and/or still angry about mask mandates and restrictions on businesses during the coronavirus pandemic that killed 1.1 million Americans starting in 2020.
“He’s just campaigning off of Fauci, trying to rally the base,” Moore concluded.
Moore is a practicing specialist with Wichita-based Infectious Disease Consultants and a clinical professor with the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita. He treated many of the sickest patients from across Kansas during the pandemic.
He agrees with Marshall that the most probable source of the virus was a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, and not a “wet market” nearby that sold live animals for food, where the virus was originally said to have originated.
But where Marshall is trying to lay the fault on Fauci, Moore blames the Chinese government and the Communist Party that controls it.
“They do not like having to report bad news to their superiors,” Moore said. “They try to squash that news and try to make it go away.”
In calling for a special counsel, Marshall leaned heavily into files released June 19 by outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. The files contain allegations that Fauci downplayed the lab-leak theory of the virus’ origin and punished those who disagreed.
During the pandemic, Fauci was director of the National Institutes of Health’s Allergy and Infectious Diseases division and a key advisor to presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
“Specifically, the investigation should examine Dr. Fauci’s role related to the origins of COVID- 19, federal funding for risky coronavirus research, and the obstruction of congressional oversight,” Marshall said in a letter to DOJ head Todd Blanche, which he released to the New York Post.
Marshall claims Fauci lied to Congress about U.S. funding for “gain of function” research at the Wuhan Institute, which would involve creating new and deadlier strains of existing viruses.
Moore says that’s not exactly what happened.
“Technically, the NIH never approved or funded any grant for research intended to enhance the transmissibility or lethality of coronaviruses for humans,” Moore said. “The NIH did, however, fund a grant awarded to EcoHealth Alliance, which included sub-grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, for studying bat coronaviruses. This research involved creating hybrid viruses — chimeras — to see how they behaved in lab settings.”
EcoHealth is a U.S. based non-governmental organization focused on research to improve prevention of pandemics and reaction to emergent diseases.
The Department of Justice investigation that Marshall wants would appear to have little effect on Fauci, now retired and 85 years old.
He was one of a number of officials issued pre-emptive presidential pardons by Biden, to shield them from politically motivated prosecution by the incoming Trump administration.
In Fauci’s case, Marshall told Fox Business he intends to challenge the validity of Fauci’s pardon, because it was signed with an automated pen and not the president’s own hand.
Moore studied under Fauci, and says Marshall has him all wrong.
“He expected a lot of his fellows,” Moore said. “He held us to account, but he was also good to us — you know, made us step up our game. He didn’t accept people (doing) sloppy presentations or research. He’s exactly the guy you want in charge of an institute that is in charge of addressing major global (infectious disease) problems.”
In a perfect world, Marshall, also a medical doctor, would be trying to get to the bottom of what actually happened by talking with infectious disease experts, like Moore, to improve the response to future public health emergencies — instead of trying to sic the Justice Department on Fauci.
I’m sure Moore would welcome that phone call.
But sadly, that wouldn’t get Marshall in the New York Post and on Fox TV.
