On Monday, The Epoch Times posted an article that includes the transcript of the Deposition of Dr. Fauci taken as part of a lawsuit alleging collusion between the U.S. government and Big Tech to censor people.

The article reports:

Fauci said he did not have the expertise to determine whether COVID-19 came from nature or a laboratory, despite repeatedly dismissing the theory that it originated in a Chinese lab.

“I am not qualified since I am not an evolutionary virologist to make any kind of definitive determination about whether a genome could or could not be a laboratory construct or experimentally manipulative,” Fauci said at one point. “I have relied, as anyone would, with highly qualified, respected evolutionary virologists to come to that conclusion or not.”

Portions of the deposition dealt with a paper released in early 2020 as a preprint and later published following peer review by Nature Medicine.

Kristian Andersen and other scientists claimed that they analyzed genomic data and that “our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.”

Fauci held a secret phone call with all of the authors of the paper just weeks before it was published—some of the authors before the call expressed in since-released emails that they thought the virus did not come from nature—and has since acknowledged receiving multiple drafts of the document prior to its publication. Kristian Andersen, the lead author, told Fauci at one point, “Thank you again for your advice and leadership.”

Fauci said in the deposition that he had “very little” to do with the paper and that he did not recall making any “substantive comments” to the authors regarding the paper.

The article also notes:

Fauci said that he was concerned about misinformation and disinformation, and believed that such information could lead to the loss of life.

“I think in any situation where egregious misinformation such as some of the ones I referred to before, such as information that would discourage people from getting vaccinated, that in my mind, would be a way that life that could otherwise have been saved would be lost, if people were persuaded not to pursue a life-saving intervention,” Fauci said.

Asked if he thinks steps should be taken to curb misinformation and disinformation, he demurred.

“That’s not my area. I’m very well aware of the concept of freedom of speech. The area of the curtailment of that is something that is not in my area of expertise. Those are legal and other things. And I really don’t have any opinion on that,” he said.

Fauci said he favors open debate and, generally, the best way to combat misleading and false information is to “flood the system with correct information.” But he also said: “I think honest debate is important, but when it goes beyond debate and leads people who are unwitting about these things to do things that are clearly detrimental to their life and their safety, I find that disturbing. How you mitigate against that, I would leave to other people.”

I guess the most important question I have is why did Dr. Fauci block cures that doctors who were practicing medicine were having success with? People died because their doctors were not permitted to treat them with drugs that had been proven to be effective. Was there a financial reason for pushing the expensive vaccine rather than the cures that were less expensive?