How the Media Censored Wuhan Lab Leak Theory Due to 'Trump Derangement Syndrome'

A House subcommittee begins its investigation today into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. It will examine new evidence that the virus likely escaped from a lab in China, and whether some U.S. health officials tried to cover up the lab leak theory. 

The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic published emails Sunday in which Dr. Kristian Andersen reportedly admits that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, "prompted" him to write a scientific paper on the origins of COVID-19 with the goal of disproving the theory that the virus escaped from a laboratory in China, and instead may have come from a so-called "wet market" where exotic animals are sold.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) told Fox, "The fundamental question is, why was Dr. Fauci so consumed with making sure the narrative wasn't about the lab? I think it's because they were doing gain-of-function research there. He didn't want that out." 

The Energy Department and FBI now believe the lab leak theory to be likely true.

Much of the mainstream media has long claimed that the idea that COVID-19 originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been "de-bunked" and was a "conspiracy theory." Social media platforms labeled the lab leak theory "misinformation" and even censored it.  

Former CNN Boss Jeff Zucker reportedly called the theory a "Trump talking point" and told reporters not to pursue it. 

In a now-deleted tweet, the science reporter for The New York Times, Apoorva Mandavilli even said the lab leak theory has "racist roots."

The Washington Post's Josh Rogin now admits the media suppressed the lab leak theory in part because of "TDS," which stands for "Trump Derangement system;" opposing the lab leak theory simply because then-president Donald Trump supported it.  

ABC News' Jon Karl says the media now has egg on its face. He told ABC' "This Week" program, "Some things may be true even if Donald Trump has said them."

Sen. Tom Cotton was also dismissed as pushing a conspiracy theory when he put forward the lab leak theory 3 years ago.

Reporter David Leonhardt at the New York Times told CNN, "I think a lot of people on the political left and a lot of people in the media made this mistake of thinking 'If Tom Cotton is saying something it can't be true.'"

Arkansas Gov. Sara Huckabee Sanders accused "the media and Democrats" of "acting like defense attorneys for the Chinese instead of helping get to the bottom of what actually happened."

Today's hearing will feature Dr. Robert Redfield, the former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a long-time proponent of the lab leak theory. 

This past weekend, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz called for Dr. Anthony Fauci to face perjury charges for "lying under oath" to Congress about the origins of COVID-19. Cruz added he thinks there's zero chance of that happening under this administration. 

Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, writes that media censorship of the lab leak theory has had serious fallout, hampering a proper investigation into the origins of the virus.  

Carpenter told us, "Disinformation is very much in the eye of the beholder. It is an inherently vacuous and totally subjective concept. I think it should be an object lesson about the slippery slope of disinformation as a concept, how it can be used to stifle badly needed debates."

In a recent interview, Dr. Anthony Fauci said "We may not ever know" where the virus came from.  

Now more answers could be forthcoming after the Senate voted unanimously to declassify intelligence on COVID-19's origin.