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White House Defends Fauci, Says He’s Not Going Anywhere Despite Email Scandal

Psaki

“The president and his administration feel that Dr. Fauci has played an incredible role in getting the pandemic under control,” Jen Psaki said.

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White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki defended Dr. Anthony Fauci from her podium in Thursday’s press briefing, saying the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director won’t be leaving his position despite the recent publication of a trove of his emails dismissing and downplaying elements of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The president and his administration feel that Dr. Fauci has played an incredible role in getting the pandemic under control, being a voice to the public throughout the course of this pandemic,” Psaki said.

She also downplayed the newsworthiness of the emails by stating that they are from “17 months ago or more, certainly predating this administration but some time ago.”

 

Psaki also said that she was “not aware” of a briefing about the emails for President Joe Biden despite their prominence in the news cycle over the last 24 hours.

Thursday was the first day that Psaki faced questions about Fauci’s emails, which were published by both Buzzfeed News and the Washington Post earlier in the week. The emails show that scientists informed Facui early in January of 202 that the virus looked “engineered,” and a month later, Fauci was circulating papers on gain of function research to colleagues. But publicly, Fauci was telling media, like in a National Geographic interview in May 2020, that he was “very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated.”

Shortly after Fauci’s correspondence made waves in the press for showing his hypocrisy on masks and NIH leaders downplaying of U.S. funding of gain of function research at the Wuhan Virology Institute, not one reporter in the White House press corps asked the administration about the emails during Wednesday’s press briefing.

Corrupt corporate media outlets also ran interference for Fauci, highlighting the thousands of emails as proof of how tough the health official’s job was over the last year as he faced criticism and pressure from all sides of the political aisle.