Unless you are having trouble sleeping, I do not recommend trying to read Dr. Anthony Fauci’s 363-page testimony in a federal lawsuit about how U.S. government officials colluded with Big Tech to censor online speech about COVID.

It is positively soporific to parse Fauci saying, “I don’t recall” over and over again in response to questions ranging from the research he was funding at the Wuhan lab to whether his inspiration for lockdowns came from China.  In all, President Biden’s Chief Medical Advisor drew a blank on a couple hundred occasions during his late-November deposition detailing crucial government efforts during the earliest days of the pandemic  It was an amazing display of total recall — in reverse — all from being put under oath by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt. 

Despite tap-dancing around many of the questions, Fauci did dish some disturbing truths:

Made in China Lockdowns

In February 2020, Fauci sent one of his deputies, Dr. Cliff Lane, to China to understand how authorities were responding to early COVID cases.  Lane came back with a glowing report on how Beijing’s “extreme measures” were effective in eradicating COVID, reporting that “China has demonstrated this infection can be controlled, albeit at great cost.”

“When we got there, the outbreak was already coming under control in China,” Lane claimed on the basis of presentations by Communist officials.  “The measures they put in place appear to be working.… we may have to go to as extreme a degree of social distancing to help bring our outbreak under control.” 

Neither Lane nor Fauci questioned whether the officials who painted this glowing picture of success were telling them the truth (they weren’t).  Instead, convinced that lockdowns were the only way to go, Fauci set out to crush COVID in the same manner.

Fauci’s wasn’t following the science; he was falling for PRC propaganda — and years of US lockdowns ensued.

Don’t Upset China

Fauci claims in his deposition that the suggestion that the virus was man made was nothing more than “wild, wild speculations and accusations.” It greatly upset him, he says, but for a very noble reason.  

He was “afraid” that “blaming the Chinese” for the outbreak would “increase tensions and reduce cooperation” with Beijing that was absolutely necessary to prevent future pandemics and get to the bottom of this one. In other words, if we suggest that the virus came from a Wuhan lab, then China won’t let us investigate … whether it came from a Wuhan lab.  Really?

The truth is that Beijing was never going to let us into the lab where, in all likelihood, the Sars-Cov-2 virus was born.  Regardless of how diplomatic we are.

Fauci, of course, has always had another reason to deflect attention away from the Wuhan institute of Virology: He had been funding, through EcoHealth Alliance, coronavirus research at that very lab. 

It wasn’t just China that he feared would be blamed — it was Fauci himself.

It’s a Conspiracy Theory!

Fauci has frequently denounced, in the shrillest terms, those of us who have suggested that COVID came from the lab in Wuhan.

When Newt Gingrich asked Fauci, on a February 9, 2020 podcast, about the possibility of a lab origin, he erupted:  “I heard these conspiracy theories and like all conspiracy theories, Newt, they’re just conspiracy theories.”

That’s three “conspiracy theories” in one sentence.

Much of the November deposition concerned the role that Fauci played in organizing a group of evolutionary virologists to draft an article for publication in Nature condemning the possibility of a lab origin as a  “conspiracy theory.”  

Evidence that the coronavirus may have been engineered was left out of the article because, as one co-author noted, it would make them look like “loons.” (Actually, leaving out the evidence that the virus was genetically engineered makes them look like frauds.)

The truth, which Fauci under oath now admits is possible, is that the virus is almost certainly a lab product.  We first learned this from Chinese dissident scientist Dr. Yan Limeng, but it has now been confirmed by EcoHealth Alliance insider Dr. Andrew Huff, along with a report from Senate Republicans, among others.

Big Tech Collusion on COVID

Although Fauci claims that he never personally contacted social media companies to ask for posts to be taken down, he admitted under oath to having had 13 different conversations with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2020 alone. And it turns out that Fauci’s own daughter was employed by Twitter.

Missouri Attorney General Schmitt said the deposition makes “clear that when Dr. Fauci speaks, social media censors. …and exactly how the COVID tyranny that ruined lives and destroyed businesses was born.”  

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry pointed out an even bigger issue, that Fauci’s testimony “confirmed” that “social media companies want to control not only what you think, but especially what you say.” 

Indeed, it appears as if the government wants to control the “cognitive infrastructure” of the U.S., according to a recent DHS leak, and has enlisted Big Tech as a willing ally in this take-over of the very decision-making abilities that truly render us human.

The result: You will have no original thoughts about COVID or anything else.  But you will be happy.

Steven W. Mosher is the President of the Population Research Institute and the author of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Pandemics.“