Texas state Rep. Brian Harrison, former chief of staff of the Department of Health and Human Services under then-President Donald Trump, said he believes Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, should have delayed his planned December retirement a few months longer — for the sake of the American people.
"The timing of [Fauci's retirement] doesn't look great," Harrison told Newsmax on Monday's "American Agenda." "Why resign [right before] a new Congress takes over in January?"
That last comment was a reference to Republicans potentially taking over the House chamber after the November midterm elections; and should that happen, Harrison said a GOP-controlled House would likely launch investigations into the origins of a COVID-19 virus that contributed to more than 1 million deaths in the U.S. and crushed the nation's economy for many months in 2020 and 2021.
From Harrison's perspective, Republican investigators would like to perform a deep dive into:
- Who was behind the release of the coronavirus?
- Who funded the research that led to the development of the virus?
- Who was involved in expanding the virus's gain-of-function research to lethal levels?
"I hope [Fauci] plans on cooperating," said Harrison, who worked alongside him during the Trump administration's Operation: Warp Speed, which involved the development and distribution of coronavirus vaccines. "The American people deserve nothing less than a wholesale, exhaustive investigation into what happened."
Fauci's retirement announcement may be consuming Monday's headlines, but Harrison said the national media has missed the real story of the COVID-19 ordeal.
The bigger problem is "unelected bureaucrats possessing far more power than the elected members of legislative bodies in this country," said Harrison, who added that some congressional leaders have been passively "outsourcing their power" to bureaucrats for many years.
"We need term limits for bureaucrats, quite frankly, more than we need for elected officials," said Harrison, who represents Texas' District 10, covering a large swath between Austin and Houston, in the state Legislature.
Bureaucrats wielding unquestioned power shouldn't be a component of the U.S. political system, Harrison said.
As an example of what can go wrong under this scenario, the Texas politician pointed to media clips of Fauci randomly praising and denouncing masks, or endorsing and then mocking the concept of "herd immunity" at various stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The health agencies were compromised by "systemic failures" in handling the coronavirus response, Harrison said. There was "way too much conjecture and [too much] unsettled science" in COVID messaging to the public.
As part of that inconsistent messaging, Harrison said some state governors were "derelict in their duty" to combat the coronavirus during the pandemic.
Some governors, Harrison said, acknowledged the validity of "herd immunity" and "natural immunity" right away, while others uniformly required masks and vaccines — without taking into account that younger people were less affected by the virus.
And other politicians did little to lead the people, minus blindly heeding the words of "one doctor who came out of one agency," Harrison said in reference to Fauci.
But come January, Harrison said, a new Congress will show a greater interest in collecting all the COVID-19 facts.
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