On July 28, 2023, Weekend Australian Magazine published a bombshell report based on an exclusive interview with Dr. Robert (Bob) Kadlec, the HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) who served under Donald Trump. Basically, the subtext of the interview can be summarized as “it was all Tony’s fault, not mine.”
To many readers this may seem like just more Washington, DC Kabuki theater with a side order of limited hangout (much like the prior Vanity Fair article in which Kadlec provided a generous scoop of spin with a topping of CYA). Personally, I find this whole “inside the Beltway” rush to deflect blame for the gross “public health” mismanagement and rampant lying during the COVIDcrisis slightly amusing, in a twisted sort of way, but definitely popcorn worthy.
Here is the breathless title:
Covid cover-up:
how the science was silenced Anthony Fauci deliberately downplayed suspicions from scientists that Covid-19 came from a lab to protect his reputation and deflect from risky research his agency had funded, his boss says.
By SHARRI MARKSON
Ms. Markson’s report on her exclusive can be found here (behind a paywall).
Now at one level, my initial reaction to this was “verry interresting” (a reference to an iconic Arte Johnson character in the weekly ‘60s TV comedy series Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, for those not old enough to remember). The typical tag line to the skit being “but stupid.”
Particularly intriguing (to me at least) was that this interview was provided to an Australian journalist and her Weekend Australian Magazine editors rather than the usual US corporate media propaganda outlets.
Before we dive into the substance of the accusations thrown and assertions made by Dr. Kadlec regarding his longstanding close colleague Dr. Fauci, allow me a moment to introduce Dr. Kadlec, who is one particularly stereotypic example of the Deep State intelligence community denizens who have haunted (and directed) the US “Biodefense” Enterprise for decades. Please see Head of the Hydra: The Rise of Robert Kadlec printed by The Last American Vagabound for more salacious details.
The only US biodefense/biowarfare expert even more stereotypic that Dr. Kadlec who I have encountered during my brief career in that sector was (now deceased) Major General (Ret) Philip K. Russell, Founding Director of the Sabin Institute. Both notorious and legendary for his Congressional testimony supporting up-funding the military/industrial biodefense enterprise by adapting the phrase “bridging the valley of death” as justification for funding public-private partnerships in this area, Phil knew where all the bodies were buried and what buttons to push to activate programmatic funding. WRAIR commander and then Hopkins Professor. But I digress.
(deceased) Major General (Ret) Philip K. Russell. His brief bio can be found here.
“Dr. Russell became Commandant of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, where he conducted laboratory and clinical research on viral and parasitic diseases; his work contributed to the development of vaccines for adenovirus, meningitis and hepatitis A and B. After retiring from the military, Dr. Russell became professor of international health at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.”
In my experience, “Bob” Kadlec is relatively quiet and circumspect but quite willing to invoke the Lord God during public presentations, and I have always believed him (without direct evidence) to be a longstanding and high status member of the US “Intelligence Community.” During the Trump administration, in his position as ASPR, Dr. Kadlec reported to the attorney, businessman, lobbyist, and former pharmaceutical executive HHS Secretary Alex Azar, who in turn reported to Mr. Trump.
The notorious (now retired) CIA agent (“DARPAs’ Man in Wuhan”) Dr. Michael Callahan reported directly to Dr. Kadlec throughout the Trump-era aspect of the COVIDcrisis, and I recall Michael frantically speaking of the need to protect Kadlec after the husband of BARDA director Dr. Rick Bright went to the Los Angeles Times to complain of unfair treatment at the hands of Kadlec (who was his direct boss) and then Rick filed a federal whistleblower lawsuit on his way out the revolving door to a cushy job with the Rockefeller Institute. What a tangled web we weave. Like I said at the outset of this essay, lots of “inside the beltway” Kabuki theater wrapped up around all of this.
In any case, as far as I am concerned, Bob Kadlec criticizing Tony Fauci for duplicity and mismanagement of the COVIDcrisis is likely to land somewhere between the pot calling the kettle black and a sophisticated, coordinated disinformation campaign intended to distract the public from the sins of the CIA, its surrogates and offshore “five eyes” intelligence allies. In other words yet another limited hangout designed to distract the gullible in Congress as well as the general public – here and abroad.
So, with that lengthy prelude and context demonstrating my clear bias and general “A plague a’ both your houses!” attitude (Mercutio to Romeo, Shakespeare, for heavens sake), please allow me to highlight some of the bombs which Dr. Kadlec is lobbing over in Dr. Fauci’s general direction (with thanks to Will Jones of the “Brownstone” authors group who originally found this gem of a story in the Aussie press).
Oh yeah, it turns out that the Weekend Australian Magazine has been running circles around US Corporate media for quite a while (I know, … a low bar), and has previously documented (in 2021!) that the National Institutes of Health and other US agencies funded 65 scientific projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology over the past decade, many involving risky research on bat coronaviruses.
America’s top infectious diseases adviser, Anthony Fauci, deliberately decided to downplay suspicions from scientists that Covid-19 came from a laboratory to protect his reputation and deflect from the risky coronavirus research his agency had funded, according to his boss, one of the most senior US health officials during the pandemic.
In an exclusive interview, Robert Kadlec – former assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the US Department of Health – told The Weekend Australian that he, Dr Fauci and National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins privately discussed how to “turn down the temperature” on accusations against China in the early days of the pandemic while they were trying to encourage Beijing to co-operate and share a sample of the virus.
“I think Tony Fauci was trying to protect his institution and his own reputation from the possibility that his agency was funding the Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers who, beyond the scope of the grants received from the National Institutes of Health, may have been working with People’s Liberation Army researchers on defensive coronavirus vaccines,” Dr Kadlec said.
“I think it’s evident from his later released emails (obtained via Freedom of Information requests) that he had more sense of what his institute had funded at that moment. This was a reputational risk to him and his institute and certainly he probably sided with the international scientists that believed that false or unsubstantiated accusations could have a chilling effect on scientific collaboration between the western world and China.”
Dr Kadlec, in his first ever media interview, added: “We think vaccine research resulted in the pandemic – that vaccine research was the proximate cause.” In an extraordinary admission, Dr Kadlec said they decided to try to encourage a group of leading international scientists to calm down speculation on the origins of the virus.
The scientists held a phone call on February 1, 2020, in which they discussed concerns that SARS-CoV-2 looked like it may have been genetically engineered. “When we talked about this in advance of that call, he (Fauci) would just try and see if he could get the scientists to take the temperature down, turn the rhetoric down. to at least find, we’re going to look into this but we don’t know,” Dr Kadlec said.
“We decided to engage our national experts to look at this, the National Academy of Sciences,” he said. “It would take time to figure out what was going on. We were trying to prevent people from saying this was a bioweapon when we didn’t really know. That was my intent. It was Dr Fauci’s idea to see if he could get international scientists to examine the origins in a similar fashion. The object was to prevent speculation and turn the temperature down. There was something that could be said to turn the temperature of rhetoric down and avoid the wild speculation, of a bioweapon, that had already started at that point in time.”
“Their paper did result in casting the die for what would then be the international scientific response going forward,” he said. “I found it really odd that in light of the now revealed private musings of some of the scientists indicated the sequence looked unusual, that the authors decided to draft a letter as an opinion piece.”
“Many people were confused or mistaken by what they wrote as more of a peer-reviewed paper. Their initial opinion was likely shaded by their personal professional equities or the belief that what was going on in the US – statements by political leaders- could be problematic for world relations for China but also their professional interests in science,” he said.
Gain-of-function research was banned by the Obama administration but lifted during the Trump era. Dr Kadlec says this was at the behest of the NIH. “Francis Collins and Fauci both had a similar world view which was scientists know best and there should be few restrictions on research,” he said.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology and EcoHealth Alliance drew up a proposal for grant funding for coronavirus research, which international scientists now believe could be the “blueprint” of Covid-19. Dr Kadlec chaired a committee to authorise whether gain-of-function could proceed. The proposal from the Wuhan institute was bouncing around US Government agencies, in search of funding, but it never went through his committee. “It shows you the fallibility or vulnerability of the oversight system,” he said.
Dr Fauci has denied his agency funded gain-of-function research, but Dr Kadlec said this wasn’t true. “It’s evident NIH supported research that has the potential for, and it at least one case resulted in gain of function,” he said.
Then Sharri Markson drops the big one, which is completely consistent with the emerging story line now cautiously creeping through an Overton window. Said window having been well and truly jammed open regarding the central role of the CIA and Western intelligence community in its mismanagement of the COVIDcrisis.
The full extent of those suspicions is now laid bare in emails subpoenaed by US congress and published in recent weeks. In those emails, some scientists discussed the “shit show” that would eventuate if anyone serious accused China of, even accidentally, starting the pandemic. They also discussed the impact such an accusation would have on scientific research and international relations. But, publicly, they insisted the possibility of an inadvertent laboratory leak was a conspiracy and authored a paper published in Nature Medicine, that argued SARSCov-2 was almost certainly a natural virus. Dr Kadlec acknowledges the power of that paper, titled the Proximal Origins of SARS-CoV-2, as becoming the official word that a laboratory leak was a conspiracy theory. “Their paper did result in casting the die for what would then be the international scientific response going forward,” he said. “I found it really odd that in light of the now revealed private musings of some of the scientists indicated the sequence looked unusual, that the authors decided to draft a letter as an opinion piece. “Many people were confused or mistaken by what they wrote as more of a peer reviewed paper.
Basically, Tony Fauci lied, and people died; lives, families, children’s education, careers, businesses and whole economies were destroyed. The rich got richer, the poor poorer, and the middle class was decimated. And Klaus Schwab, the WEF (and its “young leader” minions), and totalitarianism flourished. Massive global “passive” investment funds, central bankers and their Bank of International Settlements masters moved one step closer to weaponizing banking to create one ring to rule them all – Central Bank Digital Currency coupled to Social Credit scores.
And Trump was yet again branded a racist.
Good thing that Tony and his cronies were able to protect the CCP through this shizastorm! <sarcasm>.
Here is a recent video of a Sharri Markson broadcast on Sky News (AUS). Well worth watching in my opinion.
Republished from the author’s Substack
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