In an 11th-hour move as he prepared to leave office, former President Joe Biden granted Dr. Anthony Fauci a sweeping pardon covering any potential offenses dating back to 2014 — the same year the United States' ban on "gain-of-function" research took effect.

In the latest episode of BlazeTV's "The Coverup," Matt Kibbe and Dr. Richard Ebright expose the smoking gun behind Biden's unprecedented pardon.

Ebright explained how Fauci leveraged the 2001 anthrax attacks to rise to power. Fauci's willingness to effectively become the nation's "biodefense research czar" resulted in him becoming the highest-paid government employee.

'Fauci's response has been to double down and say he did the right thing.'

"9/11 and the anthrax mailings provided an opportunity, provided an opening, provided a pretext to support a number of activities, and one of those activities was the expansion of biodefense efforts and the redirection of those efforts away from countermeasures and towards research on the biological weapons agents themselves," Ebright told Kibbe.

He explained that former Vice President Dick Cheney sought an agency to conduct such research that did not have — and would not implement — a biological weapons convention compliance office. Cheney's solution was the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Ebright expressed concern about another "deliberate release or, inadvertently, an accidental release." He noted that in 2002, it had become clear that the anthrax mailings were a deliberate attack committed by a worker at a biodefense research laboratory.

"Ironically, the response to that attack from within — a response that began almost seven months before the source had been identified — was to increase the number of institutions ... and the number of individuals ... who had hands-on access to fully infectious biological weapons agents and to do that with no material increase in oversight in safety and security," Ebright said.

Ebright highlighted several harmful biological weapons research projects — including the recreation of the 1918 pandemic influenza virus and the reconstruction of the avian flu for human transmission — which he referred to as Fauci's "embarrassments."

He noted that the research was carried out without first conducting risk assessments.

"Each time, Fauci's response has been to double down and say he did the right thing. 'This is a risk, but I have reviewed this risk, and I, Dr. Fauci, have determined on behalf of 7.9 billion members of the global public that this a risk worth taking,'" Ebright stated.

Ebright accused Fauci of "repeatedly and flagrantly" violating U.S. policies and then lying in congressional testimony.

Fauci "participated in a conspiracy to defraud the public about the origin [of the COVID-19 virus] in a conspiracy to cover up the origin."

Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) stated that he has referred Fauci to the Department of Justice for prosecution three times after he apparently lied to Congress in 2021, claiming that the NIH never funded gain-of-function research.

"We've detailed his lies to Congress, which are a felony. I've sort of tragically and jokingly said, 'If he were a member of the Trump administration, he would have been arrested long ago.' Because I think we have two standards of justice," Paul told Kibbe. "He certainly seems to be protected."

"The reason the Democrats, I think, coalesced around him is that he represents government, and they think government is the answer to most things," Paul continued. "Any attack on him is an attack on central planning or an attack on government."

Dr. Scott Atlas, one of President Trump's health advisers during his first administration, stated that Fauci, former White House coronavirus task force coordinator Deborah Birx, and former Centers for Disease Control Director Robert Redfield "presided over the worst fiasco in public health history."

"They destroyed — hopefully not irreparably — a younger generation, creating hysteria, massive psychological harms on teenagers and college students, suicidal ideation, cigarettes being put out on their skin, self-harm, a massive spike in anxiety and depression. These are all from the lockdown, not the virus. And an obesity crisis where more than over half of college-age Americans had an average weight gain during 2020 of 28 pounds," he stated. "They did that. They caused that. And the third massive problem with their legacy, they destroyed trust in public health and science."

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