Fauci was responsible for the work of large swathes of the US medical research establishment, and was questioned on that work on a daily basis. Does it make any sense to say he can't comment on the work of an organisation he runs because he runs it?
In this case the lab didn't even work for him, it just got some small amount of funding from his organisation's budget but he had no say in it's operations. So he can comment on the work of his organisation, but not about the work of an organisation he partly funded?
We know perfectly well he is not an external observer. That's not the capacity in which he's commenting, any more than a president is commenting in an external or impartial capacity about the work of the executive branches, or e.g. UN agencies partly funded by the US.
Why is disclosure of potential conflict of interest made out to be such a high bar? And why do you put arguments forth that did not exist in what you replied to?
> Does it make any sense to say he can't comment on the work of an organisation he runs because he runs it?
Is a straw man argument, because what was said was that the conflict of interest should have been disclosed. And, not that he cannot make a comment.
Ok, that's fair, but what I'm saying is no reasonable person would consider Fauci to be an independent observer of any of this. That's just not his role.
In this case the lab didn't even work for him, it just got some small amount of funding from his organisation's budget but he had no say in it's operations. So he can comment on the work of his organisation, but not about the work of an organisation he partly funded?
We know perfectly well he is not an external observer. That's not the capacity in which he's commenting, any more than a president is commenting in an external or impartial capacity about the work of the executive branches, or e.g. UN agencies partly funded by the US.