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Sen. Rand Paul Releases Timeline of Dr. Fauci’s Extensive Contacts With Intel Community
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on Thursday released documents showing that former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci had deep, decades-long ties with the U.S. intelligence community that predate the COVID-19 pandemic by nearly 20 years.
In the timeline produced by the chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Paul chronicles extensive communications and contacts between Fauci and spy agencies. For instance, when private emails show him alarmed by the COVID-19 virus’s engineered-looking features in January 2020, Fauci helped orchestrate the “Proximal Origin” paper that publicly dismissed a lab origin and instead argued that the virus emerged naturally.
Fauci then quietly fed that same NIH-funded narrative back to the Intelligence Community during Biden’s 90-day review of the pandemic. Fauci’s exchanges with the intelligence community, however, began well before COVID-19.
EPA Won’t Set Nationwide Standards for Data Centers
The Trump administration is not going to set nationwide environmental requirements or recommendations for the rapidly growing data center industry, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said Wednesday. While there are technologies and practices that reduce air pollution and water usage, states and communities know what works best for them, Zeldin said at the POLITICO Energy Summit in Washington.
“Ten times out of 10, I’m not going to sit inside of an agency building in Washington, D.C., and say that we know that local community in Georgia or Florida or Arizona or elsewhere, better than everyone there locally,” Zeldin said. Just 37 percent of Americans would support a data center being built in their area, according to a POLITICO poll earlier this year.
There are myriad reasons cited by opponents, but water usage and air pollution are common complaints. Zeldin on Wednesday cited closed-loop data center designs that don’t have to regularly tap into local water supplies, as well as President Donald Trump’s ratepayer protection pledge, the voluntary agreement with major tech and artificial intelligence companies to pay for grid upgrades necessary for data center loads.
CDC Chief: ‘No Evidence’ USAID Cuts Hampered Ebola Response
The acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) denied Wednesday that the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign aid negatively impacted the global response to the ongoing Ebola outbreak. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said on NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports” that he has “never met a more competent, committed group of professionals” than the CDC teams addressing the outbreaks of Ebola and Hantavirus.
“I’ve seen no evidence at all that any cuts that have happened… have impacted our ability to address these outbreaks,” Bhattacharya added. The State Department drastically scaled back the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) last year, absorbing its duties.
A report released by Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee earlier this month cited those cuts as contributing factors to the outbreak. “The rapid spread of the virus is directly linked to a failure to test, track, isolate and treat sick patients, which was previously possible in a war-torn, economically volatile region thanks to USAID and humanitarian assistance programs that are no longer operational,” the report stated.
Rollins Knocks Down Grassley’s Suggestion of Vaccine for Screwworms
Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) urged Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to create a vaccine for New World screwworms on Wednesday after the parasite infestation returned to the US for the first time in 60 years. Grassley said he’d spoken to Rollins about developing a vaccine for screwworms months before the recent outbreak in Texas.
“I know that there are voices in the Cabinet that don’t like vaccinations. And from that standpoint, I expect you to speak for agriculture and not listen to any of those other people that might be trying to convince you that for the screwworm thing, we shouldn’t be vaccinating,” the lawmaker said. “Because they don’t know anything about agriculture and you do. And you shouldn’t be listening to them. And if you’re getting pressure from higher up to do that, let me know so I can defend you,” Grassley told Rollins.
However, the agriculture secretary said there’s no pressure from higher-ups not to create a vaccination for the screwworm, highlighting that the screwworm is a “flesh-eating pest and not a virus or a disease.” She said the Trump administration wants to ensure that any vaccination for screwworms works and “doesn’t cause the virus to mutate, to then jump to more dairy cattle, to beef cattle, to other livestock, etc,” as it does with the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), also known as bird flu.
Scientists Call Charges Against NIH Virologists ‘Chilling’
Federal charges against two virologists have sparked public outcry among scientists concerned about NIH researchers being targeted by the Trump administration. Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced charges against Vincent Munster, PhD, and Claude Kwe, PhD, alleging the pair had transported undeclared inactivated mpox (or monkeypox) virus on a flight into the U.S. and made false statements to federal law enforcement about doing so.
The criminal complaint outlining these charges alleges non-compliance with NIH policy on the importation of biological materials. “Personal, civil and criminal penalties have been established for willful violation of regulations related to biological transport,” the complaint noted of NIH guidance.
The researchers now face a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison, the DOJ announced. Since then, other virologists have expressed concern over the charges, suggesting they’re reflective of the targeting of scientists under the Trump administration.
