Fauci says he still faces death threats because of political ‘performances’ like Marjorie Taylor Greene’s at Covid-19 hearing

Dr. Anthony Fauci said he sees a direct link between the rise in death threats made against him and his family and public figures connecting him to Covid-19 conspiracy theories, which he noted happened earlier Monday during a contentious House hearing about the government’s response to the pandemic.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said he sees a direct link between the rise in death threats made against him and his family and public figures connecting him to Covid-19 conspiracy theories, which he noted happened earlier Monday during a contentious House hearing about the government’s response to the pandemic. “It’s a pattern,” Fauci told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source,” adding that when someone in the media or in Congress “gets up and makes a public statement that I’m responsible for the deaths of X number of people because of policies or some crazy idea that I created the virus – immediately you can, it’s like clockwork – the death threats go way up.” The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was grilled by Republicans on the House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic about the US’ handling of Covid-19, the origins of the virus and the use of unofficial emails by some officials at the National Institutes of Health. Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia in heated remarks during the hearing criticized mask mandates, called for Fauci to be prosecuted for “crimes against humanity” and refused to call the former NIAID director “doctor.” “So that’s the reason why I’m still getting death threats. When you have performances like that unusual performance by Marjorie Taylor Greene in today’s hearing, those are the kinds of things that drive up the death threats because there are a segment of the population out there that believe that kind of nonsense,” Fauci said. CNN has reached out to Greene’s office for comment.