A coalition of more than 155 scientists, doctors and public health advocates is urging an end to what it calls the “vilification and harassment” of numerous American researchers by the Trump administration and its political allies.
Their appeal came in an open letter released a day before Anthony Fauci, the former chief US government science adviser, is due to testify at a closely watched congressional hearing. The Republican-led Senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee has compelled Fauci’s appearance, while the letter’s signatories rejected the accusations leveled against the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director as unfounded.
Fauci, 85, who played a central role in shaping the United States’ Covid-19 response during his long tenure leading Niaid, is scheduled to appear under subpoena before the committee on Wednesday. The hearing is part of an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic and into claims that federal officials, including Fauci, misled Congress and the public about where the outbreak began. Senator Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the committee, has advanced that allegation for years.
In the letter, the group accuses the Trump administration and allied members of Congress of mounting what it describes as a campaign against individual scientists, citing public intimidation, arrests, criminal charges and repeated threats of prosecution.
While the letter says several researchers and public health figures have faced pressure and scrutiny, it argues that Fauci has become the most visible focus of those attacks. Fauci stepped down from federal service in 2022 after 38 years as head of Niaid.
According to the letter, the claims against Fauci include allegations that he concealed the origins of Covid-19, pressured or paid scientists to support a cover-up, funded research through Niaid that triggered the pandemic, personally owns patents connected to the virus, and worked with intelligence agencies to bury the truth. The signatories said no credible evidence has been presented to substantiate what they characterized as “absurd charges”.
The group also warned that the sustained accusations have contributed to what it described as five years of harassment and violent threats aimed at Fauci and his family.
“Now, this month, he is being subpoenaed by Congress once again,” the letter says, noting that over more than six decades in public service, Fauci helped steer the nation through HIV and Covid-19, Ebola and Sars outbreaks, and the 2001 anthrax attacks. It adds that he has devoted his career to advancing science and safeguarding public health.
“As the congressional hearings targeting Dr Fauci approach, we are urging our elected representatives in Congress stop these witch-hunts and support good public health and scientific practices so that America’s leadership in innovation remains secure,” the letter concludes.
Ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, Paul, the Republican who chairs the committee, released thousands of pages of Fauci’s diary entries from during the Covid-19 pandemic, which showed Fauci’s efforts to manage and address the pandemic, navigate his relationship with Donald Trump, and reflect on his public profile and media image.
Fauci left the government at the end of 2022 and has said over the years that research has “strongly suggested” that coronavirus most likely emerged through natural origins, probably from animal-to-human transmission.
But he has insisted he keeps a “completely open mind” about other possibilities, including the theory that the virus may have leaked from a lab in China in 2019, and has denied allegations by some Republican lawmakers, including Paul, that he sought to suppress that theory.
Before Trump returned to office last year, Joe Biden issued a pre-emptive pardon to Fauci and other senior officials. But despite the pardon, Paul has referred Fauci to the Department of Justice for “potential criminal prosecution”.
