NASEM Seeks to Advise Trump—He Should Ignore Them

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is a congressionally established institution that acts as the premier scientific academy in the United States. While that may seem highly reputable and impressive, the reality is quite different. We have discussed NASEM in the past, but the reason we are addressing them now is that one of NASEM's presidents, Marcia McNutt, has announced that her organization is ready to work with President Trump, writing that NASEM “stands ready, as it always has, to advise the incoming administration."

But is that really a good idea? Should Trump trust this organization? History suggests he should not. Considering how NASEM undermined Trump during the Covid pandemic, the evidence indicates that McNutt’s apparent graciousness may be more of an attempt at preemptive damage control.

A first key point to note is that McNutt chose to publish her statement in Science magazine, which, not unlike NASEM itself, has become a political propaganda outlet that consistently promotes the fraudulent natural origin narrative for Covid. In fact, it was Science magazine that was the first to propagate this false narrative on January 31, 2020, long before most people had even heard of Covid.

Second, McNutt wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about Trump when he first became president, complaining on Twitter that Trump wanted to cut the budget for National Science Foundation fellowships. Without one, she lamented, she “would not have pursued a career in science and be leading [NASEM] today.” In hindsight, this is rather ironic because Trump may have fared better during Covid had NASEM been led by someone more inquisitive and less servile than McNutt.

Third, there is Peter Daszak. To understand how far this institution has fallen—and there is no doubt that NASEM used to be one of the most distinguished scientific organizations in America—we need only to examine the relationship between Daszak and NASEM. Daszak, of course, is the shady president of the equally shady front group EcoHealth Alliance, through which Anthony Fauci outsourced banned gain-of-function experiments to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Daszak has spent the past five years attempting to cover up his own actions and those of Fauci regarding the origins of Covid. Most notably, Daszak orchestrated the creation of the 2018 DEFUSE blueprint, which proposed creating Covid-like viruses at the Wuhan lab. The existence of such a proposal would have been crucial information to have been made aware of when the pandemic emerged. However, Daszak took extensive measures to not only conceal the existence of the blueprint but also to mislead the public into believing that Covid originated in nature. He aggressively silenced dissenting voices by fraudulently labeling them as “misinformation” merchants who “create fear, rumors, and prejudice.” There are numerous other facets concerning Daszak that we will not revisit here, as they are already well-documented. It is sufficient to state that he and his organization have been debarred, meaning they are no longer eligible to receive federal funding.

So why do we mention all that? Well, as it turns out, Daszak is the current chairman of NASEM’s microbial threats group.

As if that weren’t enough, NASEM was asked by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in 2021 to investigate Daszak for misconduct. And for once, Republican House members did not mince words. In an 18-page letter, they meticulously outlined Daszak’s misconduct, which included refusing to cooperate with Congress, questionable financial reporting, and outright deception. However, instead of addressing the issue, NASEM chose to ignore the request, which can only be interpreted as approval of Daszak’s misdeeds. In other words, NASEM, which is now feigning a willingness to assist Trump, was and remains complicit in covering up not only for Daszak but also for the entire natural origin fraud.

And this brings us to our fourth, and main point with respect to why NASEM can not under any circumstances be trusted, and certainly not while people like McNutt remain in charge. NASEM allowed itself to be used to promote the fraudulent natural origin narrative, while suppressing the lab leak theory. Their actions not only negatively impacted on public perceptions but also directly misled Trump and his team.

To this day, NASEM has not provided any honest analysis on Covid’s origin.

Very early in the pandemic, Kelvin Droegmeier, who was the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy director in President Trump’s first administration, directed NASEM to advise the Trump administration on the origins of Covid. This occurred on February 3, 2020. Immediately, the issue was hijacked by Fauci and a handpicked group of corrupt scientists who were helping Fauci to cover up the fact that Covid came out of a lab that Fauci had funded.

The reason that Fauci was able to take charge of the matter was because Andrew Pope, one of the directors at NASEM, invited Fauci and his goons to a meeting that was going to determine what NASEM should write in response to the White House’s request. The one-hour meeting, which included Daszak and Kristian Andersen—the man whom Fauci had days earlier tasked with leading the science side of the origin cover up—also featured a presentation from Fauci himself. The specifics of Fauci's remarks remain unknown. Notably, another attendee was Ralph Baric, often referred to as the godfather of gain-of-function experiments. He was the science mastermind behind Daszak’s DEFUSE blueprint and had done experiments with the Wuhan lab that enhanced the lethality of coronaviruses. Additionally, he provided the lab with his specialized humanized mice, which are essential for developing virulent viruses in a laboratory setting. None of these people’s conflicts of interest were ever noted or reported by NASEM.

Initially, Fauci and his gang succeeded in their aim to mislead the White House into thinking that a lab origin was impossible. NASEM’s draft response letter stated that the available data was “consistent with natural evolution” and also noted that there is “currently no evidence that the virus was engineered to spread more quickly among humans.”

However, the fact that the draft response was so biased prompted one individual to challenge Fauci’s claims regarding the natural origin theory: geneticist Arvinda Chakravarti. It is not known why Chakravarti was invited to provide feedback, but we are fortunate that he did, as he urged Pope not to dismiss the possibility of a lab leak outright. Consequently, Pope moderated the final response letter and opted to qualify his statements rather than fully endorse the fraudulent natural origin narrative.

To be clear: the only reason NASEM did not fully endorse the natural origin narrative is that one individual had the courage to raise an objection. Had it been left to NASEM, they would have categorically dismissed the lab leak theory from the very beginning.

The final response letter was officially signed by McNutt, John Anderson, and Victor Dzau. Together, these three individuals served as the heads of the three NASEM bodies: sciences, engineering, and medicine.

As soon as the letter was sent, Fauci’s group noticed that the definitiveness of the draft letter had been toned down, and they were not pleased about it. (Incidentally, this did not prevent Daszak from issuing the fraudulent Lancet letter, in which he claimed that NASEM had fully endorsed the natural origin theory.) However, instead of utilizing official channels or engaging in a public debate—which might have exposed their deception—they secretly contacted one of the signatories, Dzau, in an attempt to ensure that NASEM was fully on board with the fraudulent natural origin narrative.

The person used by Fauci’s group to reach out and exert pressure on Dzau was Jeremy Farrar, the former director of a major pharmaceutical trust and current chief scientist of the World Health Organization. Farrar had helped Fauci in initiating the cover-up regarding the origins of Covid when both men co-organized the now-infamous secret teleconference on February 1, 2020, which set the process in motion. It is likely that Fauci’s group selected Farrar due to his personal acquaintance with Dzau. Farrar told Dzau that “a close knit group have been looking at this for the last 10 days and might have some information to share which might help.” If this had indeed been the case, i.e. if there truly was significant information regarding natural origin, then why proceed secretly through Dzau instead of involving Pope and others at NASEM?

It also appears that Farrar was providing Dzau with early drafts of the fraudulent Proximal Origin paper, a propaganda effort commissioned by Fauci to suppress any lab leak discussion. Evidently, Fauci’s group did not want to disseminate the Proximal Origin draft more widely, fearing that their deception might be uncovered by someone like Chakravarti before it became firmly established through organizations such as NASEM and the media.

Notably, Farrar was not a member of the NASEM expert group, nor was he included in any of the group's correspondence released under the Freedom of Information Act. In other words, Fauci or someone from Fauci’s gang must have briefed Farrar and instructed him to approach Dzau in order to get NASEM to push the natural origin narrative.

And they were immensely successful. After Farrar pressured Dzau, NASEM removed itself from the equation, effectively sitting out the next five years. This period was characterized not only by the discovery of irrefutable evidence that Covid originated from a laboratory, including the DEFUSE blueprint, but also by revelations of a massive cover-up orchestrated by Fauci, Farrar and the very individuals who had initially advised NASEM. Not only has none of this been acknowledged, but NASEM has also been acting as if it never occurred. Additionally, as previously mentioned, NASEM has been shielding Daszak.

The truth is that Fauci and his team pressured NASEM to endorse the natural origins narrative, suppress dissent as the narrative began to fall apart, and remain silent. NASEM fully complied, undermining not only Trump’s White House’s efforts to investigate the virus’s origins, but also the public’s understanding of the facts. NASEM has shown they cannot be trusted.