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Jen Psaki slammed for dodging questions on Fauci's emails and calling him 'asset': 'Run a reboot on her'

Jen Psaki's defense of Anthony Fauci came after the latter pushed back against critics in a TV appearance

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki faced backlash after appearing to defend President Joe Biden's coronavirus adviser Dr Anthony Fauci, following the release of 3,200 pages of emails from his inbox. These included exchanges which saw the nation's top infectious disease expert refute the lab leak theory and offer guidance on face masks that he would later walk back on.

"Well, I think we've spoken to this pretty extensively from here. Let me just say on Dr Fauci and his emails — he's also spoken to this many many times over the course of the last few days and we'll let him speak for himself," Psaki said when asked about the bombshell trove of emails. "And he's been an undeniable asset in our country's pandemic response," she added. "But it's obviously not that advantageous for me to re-litigate the substance of emails from 17 months ago."

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When asked again about the NIAID director, Psaki said "the president and the administration feel that Dr Fauci has played an incredible role in getting the pandemic under control."

The White House press secretary, instead, pointed to an administration intelligence review into the origins of the pandemic that is reportedly underway. "We've launched, based on the President's direction, an entire internal review process to use all the resources across government to get to the bottom of the origins, and that's a 100-day process and we'll look forward to providing — or 90 days when it's concluded," Psaki said.

She declined to respond directly to a question about a State Department fact sheet on Covid-19 released in the final days of the Donald Trump administration. "I think I'm just going to focus on our own internal review that's going to use every resource from the federal government... to see what more we can unearth about the origins which certainly we all want to get to the bottom of," Psaki said.

Netizens mocked Psaki after she appeared to dodge questions about Fauci's emails and called him an "undeniable asset in our country's pandemic response." "If by 'pandemic' she means the government mandates and media hysteria that led to the loss of livelihoods and lives, then Psaki is correct, Fauci was integral," one Twitter user wrote.

"When they say they still have “full confidence” in you, you know you’re finished," another quipped. "Interesting how this woman always has the 'nothing to see here' attitude. Dr. Fauci. 'nothing to see here.' Gas pipeline shutdown, 'nothing to see here.' Meat processing shutdown, 'nothing to see here.' The Pres takes the entire day off in the middle of the week. Very strange," a third chimed in. Another said: "@PressSec you are a blubbering idiot just like dementia Joe". Journalist Sophie O'Hara wrote: "Some one might need to run a reboot on her". 

That said, Psaki's defense of Fauci came after the latter pushed back against critics in an appearance on CNN. "I think is quite far-fetched that the Chinese deliberately engineered something so that they could kill themselves as well as other people. I think that's a bit far out," he asserted. 

"I have always said and will say today to you ... that I still believe the most likely origin is from an animal species to a human," the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases added. Fauci was asked on CNN about what he remembered from controversial redactions on several emails that were made public.

"They only took about 10,000 emails from me. Of course, I remember. I remember all 10,000 of them," he responded, sarcastically. "Give me a break."