Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and a top adviser to two US presidents during the COVID-19 pandemic, refused to answer questions from reporters on Monday as he arrived on Capitol Hill to be grilled by House lawmakers about his role in the US response to the outbreak.

Fauci, 83, stayed silent as he was escorted by Capitol Police to a hearing room for his first transcribed interview since retiring from public service — an ordeal that will cover “more than 200 pages of questions and approximately 100 exhibits,” according to House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio).

“We’re looking forward to this. We’ve been waiting for this day for a long time,” Wenstrup told The Post as he arrived.

“I think we’re doing some really important work for the nation and maybe even the world, and we’ll make sure that we take a look back at what all happened during the pandemic, and how we prepare for the next one and how we are organized as a country to be able to be prepared.”

Wenstrup added in a statement that panel members will “demand explanations for any pandemic-era failures” and Fauci’s “role as the face of America’s COVID-19 public health response,” predicting that the former NIH official’s testimony “will shed light on topics that no Committee, Member, nor news outlet has ever inquired about before.”

“This is an opportunity for Dr. Fauci to explain his COVID-19 policy positions. His forthcoming, honest, and transparent testimony over the next two days is critical for improving our nation’s future public health responses,” the lawmaker said.

Wenstrup’s subcommittee has focused in particular on efforts by Fauci and former National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins to silence dissent about the so-called “lab-leak theory” of COVID-19’s origins, obtaining internal communications from the top health officials that revealed they had prompted scientists to author a paper in the journal Nature Medicine debunking the theory early in 2020.

The COVID panel also subpoenaed one of Fauci’s top advisers in October for having “likely used his personal email to delete COVID origins documents and evade [Freedom of Information Act] laws.”

Fauci and Collins have both denied in testimony to Congress that the NIH had funded risky gain-of-function research at a lab in Wuhan, China, where the pandemic began in late 2019.

The Government Accountability Office issued a report in June 2023 that found NIH had contributed more than $1.4 million to Chinese research institutions between 2014 and 2019 despite serious biosafety concerns, including at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

That research “included genetic experiments to combine naturally occurring bat coronaviruses with SARS and MERS viruses, resulting in hybridized (also known as chimeric) coronavirus strains,” the report states, and its funding has since been cut off.

The House COVID subcommittee is also probing the influence Fauci had over the US intelligence community about the origin of the pandemic after a whistleblower disclosed the NIAID director secretly visited CIA headquarters in an attempt to “influence” analysts who later were unable to determine whether the SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a lab or was transmitted from animals to humans.

Fauci declined to respond to The Post’s questions about the whistleblower’s claim as he arrived for his interview Monday.

The House COVID subcommittee is also probing the influence Fauci had over the US intelligence community about the origin of the pandemic after a whistleblower disclosed the NIAID director secretly visited CIA headquarters in an attempt to “influence” analysts who later were unable to determine whether the SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a lab or was transmitted from animals to humans.

Wenstrup also said he will ask Fauci about misleading information the government gave about natural immunity to the coronavirus, his “flip-flopping position on mask mandates, including for children” and the decision to close down schools and impose business lockdowns during the pandemic.

Additionally, he said, Fauci will be questioned about having accepted royalties and failing to disclose potential conflicts of interest during his nearly four-decade tenure as a public health official.

The former NIAID director, who has said he donates all royalties, was at one point the highest-paid US government official and had a net worth of $11.5 million when he left government service in December 2022.

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