Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was the lead adviser for the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, threw cold water on GOP accusations he masterminded a cover-up of the virus’ origins.

Fauci called the claims “absolutely false and simply preposterous” during a heated appearance before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on Monday, saying Republicans misrepresented emails between himself and other scientists about the possibility the virus was leaked from a lab.

“It is inconceivable that anyone who reads this email could conclude that I was trying to cover up the possibility of a laboratory leak,” Fauci, who served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for nearly 40 years before retiring in 2022, testified.

“We spend our whole life trying to determine the causes of infectious diseases, and stop them to protect the American people,” he continued.

The panel’s Republicans have not produced any evidence Fauci orchestrated a lab leak coverup, but they continue to emphasize that the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance received funding from Fauci’s agency to conduct virus research in Wuhan, China ― where COVID-19 was first identified. They also narrowed in on a senior official working under Fauci who deleted messages and may have evaded federal records-keeping laws while emailing with EcoHealth Alliance officials.

“The office you directed and those serving under your leadership chose to flout the law and bragged about it,” panel chairman Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) said to Fauci on Monday. “Why did you allow your office to be unaccountable to the American people?”

Fauci responded that he knew nothing about those violations and admonished the official for his actions. Democrats, led by the panel’s ranking member Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.), backed him up.

“After 15 months, the select subcommittee does not possess a shred of evidence to substantiate these extreme allegations Republicans have levied against Dr. Fauci for nearly four years,” Ruiz said.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), another Republican member of the panel, went much further last year when the panel first got underway.

“Covid-19 wasn’t created by bats in a wet market,” she proclaimed on social media. “It was manufactured in a lab funded by Fauci. He tried to cover it up.”

The lab leak theory also remains unproven. Most scientists favor the theory that the virus originated from an animal-to-human transmission.

“When I read the papers written by an international group of highly, highly respected evolutionary virologists,” Fauci testified Monday, “I lean much more heavily that this is a natural occurrence.”