A scientist insisted Wednesday that Dr. Anthony Fauci is hiding the truth about the U.S. funding of research that could shed light on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic during the first hearing on the matter.

At issue during the Senate homeland security and governmental affairs subcommittee on emerging threats hearing is gain-of-function research, which can enhance the severity or transmissibility of existing viruses that may infect humans. Since the pandemic erupted globally in early 2020, many American suspicions have pointed to China.

Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been adamant that the National Institutes of Health did not fund gain-of-function research at a Chinese government lab.

But Dr. Richard Ebright, lab director for the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University, told senators Wednesday that Fauci was lying.

“The statements made on repeated occasions to the public, to the press, and to policymakers by … Dr. Fauci have been untruthful,” Ebright said. “I do not understand why those statements are being made because they are demonstrably false.”