Thread by @TyCardon

Fun facts courtesy of Fauci:
By mid-Feb 2020 an “ad hoc” group of experts “informally led by Jeremy Farrar” had been meeting to look at “coronavirus sequences to . . . determine the evolutionary origin.” Also per Fauci, this sort of thing “is not [his] area of expertise.” LOL 1/

Fortunately, Farrar decided to include Fauci in this “ad hoc” group (despite admitted lack of expertise), and now we have his (heavily redacted) emails. (Thanks FOIA!) Farrar’s first act as informal leader (that we know of) was to organize a teleconference on Feb. 1, 2020. 3/

“Information and discussion is shared in total confidence and not to be shared until agreement on next steps.”
Bold opening statement, especially considering it went to top public health officials from the US & UK (Fauci & Vallance) as C-19 was spreading rapidly within both. 4/

See image below for the agenda. Note the initials of the person giving the “introduction, focus and desired outcomes” and the “summary and next steps”.

This “informal leader” clearly has some muscle.

*Googles “Jeremy Farrar Wellcome Trust”*

5/

Before the call, Farrar sends another email to the group [pages 3172-3173 of the Buzzfeed Fauci email dump]:

“Kristen [Kristian?] and Eddie have shared this and will talk through it on the call. Thank you.

Hope it will help frame the discussions.” 6/

What did Kristian Andersen and Eddie Holmes shared with the group that Farrar hoped would frame the discussion?

The name of the file Farrar attached appears at the bottom of the email [page 3174, Fauci dump]:

“Coronavirus sequence comparison[1].pdf”

7/

In an earlier Tweet, I mentioned UK Chief Scientific Advisor Patrick Vallance was also part of this “ad hoc” group. Well, @WhatDoTheyKnow was able to obtain his emails via FOI request, and here’s where it gets interesting… 8/

The Vallance emails, though heavily redacted, reveal an interesting reply to Farrar’s email with the coronavirus sequence comparison file that was either omitted or redacted in the Fauci emails.

“We need to talk about the backbone too, not just the insert?”

9/

Odd question to put to a group of scientists convened to look at “bat, pangolin, and human coronavirus sequences to try to determine an evolutionary origin”, no?
Sounds more like something you’d ask a group that understands you’re dealing with an infectious chimeric virus. 10/

It’s worth noting that only a couple of hours earlier Kristian Andersen told Fauci that some features of the coronavirus sequences “(potentially) look engineered” and that he, Eddie, Bob, and Mike “all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.” 11/

Of the 13 scientists invited to join the call, we know that at least four found the virus inconsistent with evolutionary theory, including the Andersen and Holmes, who prepared the sequence comparison and sent to the group before the call. 12/

So it’s not surprising that whatever sequences were being compared and discussed on the call would include sequences that had been engineered. Whatever “desired outcomes” were presented on the call must have been persuasive because they’ve been zoonosis zealots ever since. 13/