Anthony Fauci admitted during a lengthy deposition that his daughter was working for Twitter during the COVID pandemic, even as social media companies were actively censoring those with dissenting viewpoints about the pandemic's origins and draconian "public health" measures Fauci endorsed.

The characteristically cagey Fauci said "I can't recall" 174 times during seven hours of questioning on numerous topics, including the origins of the pandemic and his personal views on how social media should regulate "disinformation." 

Fauci says daughter worked for Twitter

Fauci, who was questioned as part of a Republican lawsuit concerning collusion between Big Tech and the Biden administration, repeatedly said that "disinformation" and "misinformation," such as information casting doubt on COVID vaccines, is deadly.

He also shared that his daughter worked for Twitter as a software engineer until recently but denied ever talking to her about content shared on Twitter.

When asked how he believes "disinformation" should be handled, Fauci, who has grandiloquently held forth on all matters of public and private life since March 2020, said that social media "is not my lane" and even said he is doubtful that social media firms would defer to his vaunted expertise.

"To my knowledge, I've never had anyone mention me and my authority or my reputation that has anything to do with influencing social media platforms," Fauci said.

Fauci goes blank

Fauci continued to prevaricate during extensive questioning about COVID's origins and his private discussions in the pandemic's early days concerning the subject with other scientists, which touched on the possibility the virus was man-made, something Fauci has publicly dismissed as "molecularly impossible."

He claimed that he was not on close terms with key figures associated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology such as Peter Daszak, who sent Fauci a personal "thank you" for helping "dispel the myths" about a lab leak.

Fauci also claimed to have only murky knowledge of funding awarded by the agency he runs, NIAID, for Daszak to perform bat coronavirus research in Wuhan, saying he was grasping the scope of that research for the "first time" in early 2020.

"I became aware of this after all of the attention was put on it, following the early part of January, February, mid-March of 2020, but I certainly was not aware -- well, I wouldn't say certainly because who knows what came across my desk. Thousands of pieces of paper come across my desk," he said.

Fauci worried about "blaming" China

Fauci also said he was concerned early on about a narrative "blaming the Chinese" when asked about an e-mail he sent mentioning "distortions" spreading on social media. When questioned about a directive to "move quickly," Fauci said he was talking about "getting down to the facts."

"I’m talking about getting down to the facts because when the facts come out, that counters distortions wherever that distortion is, speaking here or on social media or in any way," he said.

He also admitted that his assistant was "very impressed" with China's response to the outbreak. Fauci suggested that he was inspired by China's approach, saying it showed that "social distancing" was necessary for "essentially the entire community" in America.

Dr. Fauci is also facing questioning from a Republican-controlled House next year, but the virologist, who has blasted criticism of him as an attack on "science," has said he has nothing to hide.