Psaki defends Fauci amid allegations he lied to Congress when pressed by Doocy: 'What he said was correct'

White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended Dr. Anthony Fauci on Thursday amid allegations that he lied to Congress over whether or not the U.S. government funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan leading up to the coronavirus pandemic.

Fauci adamantly denied during his testimony on Capitol Hill that the National Institutes of Health funded any gain-of-function research in Wuhan, but The Intercept published a story on Monday exposing several hundred pages of documents that revealed the U.S. government pumped $3.1 million into American health organization EcoHealth Alliance to back bat coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and that almost $600,000 of that federal money was partially used by the WIV to find and alter bat coronaviruses that could jump to humans and infect them. 

CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WAPO AVOID DOCUMENTS SUGGESTING FAUCI LIED TO CONGRESS ABOUT NIH FUNDING WUHAN LAB RESEARCH

Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked Psaki about the report during Thursday’s press briefing. 

"You said from that podium that under no circumstance would President Biden ever fire Dr. Fauci," Doocy said. "Is that still the case since Fauci told Congress the NIH never funded gain of function research for coronaviruses in Wuhan but documents published by The Intercept suggest that it’s not true, which would mean he mislead Congress?"

The press secretary quickly defended Fauci and dismissed any wrongdoing. 

"Well, first, I would say that NIH has refuted that reporting and I would point you to that," Psaki said before offering to provide some highlights. 

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"NIH has never approved any research that would make a coronavirus more dangerous to humans, a reminder that there are previous and different coronaviruses than the existing one we're battling," Psaki continued. "And the body of science produced by this research demonstrates that the bat coronavirus sequences published from that work NIH supported were not the COVID-2 strain, so what he said was correct." 

Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.