Glenn Greenwald Goes on Tirade Against The Intercept After it Finds New Documents Undermining its Criticism of Wuhan Lab Theory
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Intercept co-founder Glenn Greenwald took aim at his former publication on Monday after it acknowledged new documents from the National Institutes of Health raised “additional questions” about the theory that Covid-19 began in a lab accident.
“In July, the Intercept had one of its most dishonest partisan hacks, Robert Mackey, basically call Rand Paul a liar and deranged conspiracy theorist over and over for suggesting Fauci funded research that could’ve caused the pandemic,” Greenwald wrote on Twitter, referencing an Intercept reporter’s work about Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci. “But yesterday, the very same Intercept admits it sought documents about Fauci-funded research by EcoHealth (Peter Daszak’s group) that ‘raise additional questions about the theory that the pandemic may have begun in a lab accident.'”
The Monday story by the Intercept’s Sharon Lerner and Mara Hvistendahl highlighted more than 900 pages of documents obtained from the NIH about work conducted by EcoHealth Alliance and its president, Peter Daszak. The documents detailed work Daszak’s group performed with $3.1 million in U.S. funding from the NIH to lead “an ambitious effort” in conjunction with Chinese partners, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology, to “screen thousands of bat samples for novel coronaviruses.” Of that figure, $599,000 was used by the Wuhan institute “to identify and alter bat coronaviruses likely to infect humans.”
2/ But yesterday, the very same @theintercept admits it sought documents about Fauci-funded research by EcoHealth (Peter Daszak’s group) that “raise additional questions about the theory that the pandemic may have begun in a lab accident.”https://t.co/R4UbfZSCWa
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) September 7, 2021
Paul has sparred with Fauci on several occasions this year over whether his federal agency played a role in funding EcoHealth’s work with the laboratory that might have instigated Covid-19. Greenwald highlighted a July column Mackey authored claiming Paul had “politicized” the issue by “cherry-picking expert opinions.”
“The documents the Intercept sought — which I’ll bet any amount of money they thought would debunk Paul & vindicate Fauci — instead did the opposite (oops),” Greenwald added on Twitter. “The docs more than ever link Daszak’s research to possible COVID origins.”
However, he noted, “Even when they accidentally do reporting that undermines liberal political causes, Intercept editors have to make sure they stay loyal. The admit that Daszak’s highly risking research was funded by NIAID, but never once mention the name “Fauci,” the Director of that agency. … And just by the way: this is why I also found irrational and incomprehensible the insistence by some on the left that that lab-leak theory shouldn’t be investigated — even if it’s true — due to fears of stoking Cold War hatred of China. The research was also *US*-funded and led.”
