Anthony Fauci will enter the spotlight again in June with testimony to Congress about the origins of the COVID pandemic and his role in crafting the public health response.
It is the first time Fauci will face Congress since he retired from his job as a government researcher in 2022.
Through the pandemic, Fauci became the face of the government's polarizing public health response, which included lockdowns and mask and vaccine mandates.
Fauci's ties to coronavirus research in China have also led to accusations that he helped cover up a speculated laboratory outbreak.
Fauci will testify to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on June 3.
The panel's Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) said Fauci still has questions to answer about his role in managing the pandemic and shaping the public narrative about its origins.
“On June 3, Americans will have an opportunity to hear directly from Dr. Fauci about his role in overseeing our nation’s pandemic response, shaping pandemic-era polices, and promoting singular questionable narratives about the origins of COVID-19,” the Ohio Republican added.
COVID is a dark chapter that many would rather forget, but some argue a reckoning is needed to ensure that public health officials who misled the people face consequences.
Fauci tops the list of those seeking accountability.
At the height of the pandemic, Fauci was a pervasive presence in Americans' lives - seen by some as a benevolent public servant and a trusted authority on science, and by others as a capricious, tyrannical figure who prescribed heavy-handed and pseudoscientific measures.
As former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Fauci also authorized grant funding for controversial coronavirus research in Wuhan, China that some believe led to the outbreak of the pandemic.
Fauci insisted throughout the pandemic that COVID-19 had a natural origin, telling Congress during one hearing that it was "molecularly impossible" for the virus to be manmade.
More recently, Fauci admitted in a closed-door interview in January that the lab origin theory is not a "conspiracy."
During the same interview, Fauci conceded that the "six feet apart" rule that turned society upside down was devised arbitrarily - as he put it, the rule "sort of just appeared."
