FAUCI DEPOSITION
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, fielded questions from lawmakers during a closed-door deposition at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 8.
The marathon Q&A session, lasting from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., was the first in a two-day series of testimonies given by Fauci to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
This is Fauci’s first time answering lawmakers’ questions under oath since November 2022.
Fauci agreed to appear on condition that he be allowed to bring with him two personal attorneys and two attorneys for the government.
Information on what was discussed was sparse, as members of the panel largely demurred from answering questions until the end of the deposition.
However, a committee aide told The Epoch Times that members intended to ask Fauci questions about his position on masks. Fauci originally dismissed widespread masking, saying it wouldn’t work to stop the spread of COVID-19. Later, however, Fauci became one of the most vocal proponents of the measure.
Fauci was also expected to field questions about his communications regarding the origins of COVID, which is now widely believed to have leaked from a high-security bio-lab in Wuhan, China. Fauci initially downplayed this narrative, claiming instead that the disease was transmitted to humans by infected bat meat.
While speaking to reporters, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) indicated that progress was slow-going during the first day of questioning.
Rather, she said much of the opening hours of the panel was focused on how research grants were awarded and related topics.
“I think a lot of it is more, you know, formalities and how they go about doing things and how they went about making funding decisions,” she said.
Malliotakis said she expected more heated questions—including funding for the Wuhan lab, nonprofits that funneled money into the lab, and how the conditions in the lab allowed for a leak—to come later in the questioning.
Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) also briefly spoke to reporters.
He echoed Malliotakis on what the panel had discussed, but added that Fauci had failed to answer many of the panel’s questions.
“There may be over 100 or so ‘I don’t recall,’ ‘I don’t remember’ answers [so far],” Wenstrup said.
Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), a member of the panel, dismissed the deposition altogether.
“It’s pretty political that we’re here to begin with,” Dingell told reporters.
But she praised Fauci’s testimony, saying he was giving, “very good, detailed descriptions of what [the National Institutes of Health] does, what the job was to do, how they have worked in previous viruses, etc.”
“Quite frankly, I hope that by the end of this he is going to have clarified a lot of political points people have tried to make,” she added.
Fauci will return to Capitol Hill for a second day of questioning today.
—Joseph Lord
CANDIDATES TO IOWA: SHOW UP ON MONDAY
It’s crunch time for the Iowa caucuses, and candidates are making their last push to press the flesh and get out the vote.
Here’s what the major GOP presidential candidates are doing to seal the deal with Hawkeye voters before Jan. 15’s caucuses.
President Donald Trump is contesting his third Iowa caucus, and he’s learned a thing or two. The campaign has been working hard to ramp up a get-out-the-vote campaign.
His campaign has some 2,000 precinct captains, who commit to bringing 10 people with them on caucus night.
They’re educating volunteers with video explainers of the caucus process, hosting panel discussions with precinct captains, and offering signed campaign hats.
Trump himself is making an appeal for voters to show up on caucus night during his rallies.
“Forget polls that show we’re 35 points up,” Trump told supporters in Mason City last weekend. “Pretend we’re one point down.”
Ron DeSantis is finishing his long march by pounding the pavement and unleashing his army of volunteers.
He’s been sprinting since a New Year’s Eve event featuring the state’s governor, Kim Reynolds, holding up to four events a day.
The DeSantis ground campaign has been managed by the super PAC Never Back Down. They’ve knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors, aiming to hit every potential caucus goer multiple times.
The campaign has rounded up more than 1,500 precinct captains who are tasked with getting out the vote in their local area, a staffer told The Epoch Times.
DeSantis is also being more critical of Trump, trying to position himself as the guy who can get things done.
Some analysts are calling this a must-win for DeSantis, who needs to show that he is the Trump alternative.
Nikki Haley is spending gobs of money on TV ads and bringing strong, if late, ground game.
Her campaign and its supporting PACs have spent $4.6 million in advertising ahead of the caucuses according to AdImpact. That’s more than four times the ad spend of the Trump campaign and more than double that spent by Mr. DeSantis and his allies.
Haley herself has spent more time in Iowa than Trump, but not as much as DeSantis. She’s held more than 80 town halls in Iowa, according to campaign spokesperson AnnMarie Graham-Barnes.
The campaign has also enlisted a network of precinct captains.
Americans for Prosperity endorsed Haley in November and has been pouring cash and volunteers into her campaign. The organization aims to knock on 200,000 doors for her by caucus time.
Vivek Ramaswamy pulled his TV ads in December. Since then he has hit every county in the state for a second time.
He’s using data analysis to hyper-target his supporters and prospects, according to campaign staff.
“We’re seeing what drives a lot of young people and what drives disaffected Democrats, independents to see how we can actually reach those people,” Tricia McLaughlin, Ramaswamy’s comms director, told The Epoch Times.
“We’re getting people who are not your traditional caucus-goers who get polled,” she said. “If we can get those people out ... I think he really has a chance to shock the world, maybe even win the Iowa caucus.”
—Lawrence Wilson
TRUMP IMMUNITY APPEAL
Trump has announced that he will appear in D.C. today for a hearing over his claim of presidential immunity from the Justice Department’s charges against him.
Judge Tanya Chutkan, who’s overseeing Trump’s trial in the district court, had ruled that presidential immunity didn’t apply to Trump’s actions in this case. “Defendant’s four-year service as Commander in Chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens,” she said.
Trump’s appearance could mean more comments from the former president outside the D.C. courthouse. He has been especially critical of Judge Chutkan and said he couldn’t get a fair trial in D.C., which Trump derided as “rat-infested” and “crime-ridden.”
The Senate’s acquittal of Trump in 2021 means he can’t be tried again, his lawyers, referencing double jeopardy protections, argue. They also maintain that because the Constitution vests executive power in the president, his conduct wasn’t reviewable by courts in the same way that conduct by other executive officers was.
A three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is set to hear the case after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Jack Smith’s request to fast-track the appeals process. Oral argument could consider a claim, advanced by American Oversight, that Trump couldn’t appeal his immunity defense until tried and convicted.
Uncertainty surrounds this trial’s timeline as it does with Trump’s other trials. Judge Chutkan has placed a stay on court proceedings pending appeal, meaning the trial date of March 4, 2024, could be delayed.
This appeal is just one of many issues that could throw a wrench in legal and political timelines. The Supreme Court has already agreed to hear arguments on whether a Colorado court improperly disqualified Trump under Section Three of the 14th Amendment.
–Sam Dorman
WHAT’S HAPPENING
- Vice President Kamala Harris hosts a roundtable in Atlanta with community leaders engaged in “voting rights” issues.
- Trump attends a D.C. appeals court hearing on his immunity claim in his federal election case.
- Gov. Ron DeSantis delivers the annual State of the State address before heading back to the campaign trail in Iowa a longshot bid to challenge Trump in the Republican primary.
BOOKMARKS
The big story on Capitol Hill has been the new $1 trillion-plus spending deal first announced by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Jan. 7. Just the News reports that the conservative House Freedom Caucus has condemned it, claiming that the price tag is actually $1.658 trillion rather than the $1.59 trillion figure highlighted in the media.
“There’s no mention of border security,” Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), a Freedom Caucus member, wrote on X in response to the package.
The Epoch Times’ Lawrence Wilson and Joseph Lord zoom out, examining the spending fight and other issues that have divided Washington—including impeachment investigations of President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Republicans are targeting Mayorkas because of his handling of the border crisis.
Of course, the battle over mass immigration and its long-range consequences isn’t confined to the U.S. In an article for Compact magazine, historian Christopher Caldwell describes the aftermath of a mass stabbing in rural France.
“Over the past several weeks, the incident at Crepol has changed French attitudes toward everything: a new law that claims to crack down on immigration, the war in Gaza, next spring’s European Union elections, and the prospects for radical politics of all kinds,” Caldwell writes.
As the 2024 election heaves into view, the state of the U.S. economy has become another political battleground.
While the Brookings Institution wonders, “Why are Americans so displeased with the economy?”, Fox Business reports on what has emerged as a troubling trend in the accuracy of the government’s economic reporting. Specifically, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has revised down recent figures for new jobs by 439,000 jobs. The agency issued a similar correction regarding more than 300,000 phantom jobs in August 2023.
The Epoch Times’ Emel Akan lays out what we should expect from the economy in the year ahead. Insiders running the gamut from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon to the American Enterprise Institute’s Desmond Lachman warn of a possible recession–though some would argue that we’ve already weathered one or more over the past few years despite the government’s aversion to admitting it. On the more positive side, at least to everyday consumers, inflation has eased after spiking to wallet-emptying highs last year—and, in 2023, salary expectations were up (though that’s no surprise in an inflationary environment).
—Nathan Worcester
