By Jim Thomas | Thursday, 30 July 2026 09:16 PM EDT
China analyst Gordon Chang stated on Thursday during an appearance on the program “Ed Henry: The Big Take” that former White House COVID-19 adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci “has a lot to hide” about the origins of the coronavirus, arguing Fauci’s repeated invocation of the Fifth Amendment before a Senate committee raises new questions about his role in funding virus research tied to Wuhan, China.
On Wednesday, Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Chang, author of “The Coming Collapse of China” and “Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America,” made these remarks a day after President Donald Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that Fauci had been “always trying to protect China” during the pandemic.
“Fauci has a lot to hide,” Chang said, arguing that Fauci’s public silence tracks a paper trail he says stretches back more than a decade.
Chang pointed to the Obama administration’s October 2014 funding pause on federal gain-of-function research involving influenza, MERS and SARS pathogens, an order Chang claimed then-President Barack Obama issued “because he knew how dangerous it was.”
Chang then charged that Fauci steered the work offshore. According to Chang, Fauci “funded money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for gain-of-function research” through “that EcoHealth Alliance in New York.”
The pathway matches documented funding that sent roughly $600,000 in National Institutes of Health money to the Wuhan lab through EcoHealth Alliance between 2014 and 2019.
The funding trail, Chang said, is not ambiguous. He cited “two scientific papers from 2016 and 2017” from Wuhan researchers, which both “acknowledge funding from Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.”
Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request later showed the NIAID-funded work at Wuhan produced enhanced coronavirus growth exceeding the safety thresholds set by the NIH itself, findings the researchers were required to report.
Chang described the facility itself as “a biological weapons lab” and said, “Fauci committed perjury twice in 2021 before the Senate.”
Fauci has never been charged with perjury and denied funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology during his 2021 Senate testimony in response to questions from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
Then-President Joe Biden preemptively pardoned Fauci in January 2025 for any federal offenses through that date, a shield Paul says does not extend to statements made at Wednesday’s hearing.
Paul, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, scheduled an Aug. 5 vote on whether to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress after Fauci declined to answer questions about the diary entries Paul released last weekend, which Paul said show Fauci privately entertained the lab-leak theory he publicly dismissed.
