Old video featuring Dr. Anthony Fauci mischaracterized online

If you saw the title of a recent Facebook post featuring a video that says it shows Dr. Anthony Fauci getting “confronted on what was exposed about him last night,” you might have wondered what happened last night. 

Well, nothing. The June 21 post mischaracterizes footage from a congressional hearing that took place more than a year ago. 

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The video shows a Jan. 11, 2022, exchange between Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., during a Senate hearing on the federal response to the COVID-19 omicron variant.

During the hearing, Fauci referred to a story by Project Veritas titled “Military documents about gain of function contradict Fauci testimony under oath.” (Gain-of-function research is a controversial form of study that involves boosting the infectivity and lethality of the pathogen. Project Veritas is an organization known for undercover reporting using hidden cameras and selectively edited recordings. 

“What came out last night on Project Veritas was a grant that was submitted to DARPA then was distorted and said we’ve funded the grant,” Fauci said, using an abbreviation for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. “We have never seen that grant and we have never funded that grant. So, once again, you are completely and unequivocally incorrect.” 

We’ve previously fact-checked claims that Fauci funded research tied to COVID-19’s “creation” and rated them False. 

This claim that a video shows Fauci being confronted for something that was “exposed about him” on June 20 is also False.