Fact Check: Is Anthony Fauci's wife Christine Grady the sister of Ghislaine Maxwell?
WASHINGTON, DC: Amid debates and controversies surrounding the tense Senate hearing of Anthony Fauci, where he was questioned about the origins of Covid-19, a claim began circulating online that the former NIAID director's wife, Christine Grady, is the sister of Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell. The claim has triggered shock and calls for a fact-check.
Claim: Anthony Fauci's wife Christine Grady is Ghislaine Maxwell's sister
According to the viral claim, Anthony Fauci’s wife and bioethicist Christine Grady is the sister of British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence.
The post also accused Grady of changing her name so that no one would notice.
The post, which has garnered hundreds of thousands of likes as of this writing, drew mixed reactions from online users, triggering shock and conspiracy theories, suggesting that many believe the claim to be authentic.
Meanwhile, a few others dismissed it as fake and remained skeptical, calling for a fact-check.
Fact Check: Christine Grady is not related to Ghislaine Maxwell
The claim, however, is false, as there is no credible evidence that Grady is the sister of Maxwell. The claim stemmed from Maxwell’s actual sister, who is also named Christine.
Christine Maxwell was born in France in 1950 and co-founded Magellan, one of the internet's early search engines.
Meanwhile, Fauci's wife was born in New Jersey in 1952, attended Georgetown University, and authored hundreds of papers in the field of bioethics.
She served on the President’s Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues from 2010 to 2017, and served as the Chief of the Department of Bioethics for the National Institutes of Health.
A search on Google for the claim returned no relevant results from prominent news media outlets, which, if true, would have gone viral, given the controversy surrounding Maxwell and Epstein files.
Anthony Fauci repeatedly invokes Fifth Amendment during Senate hearing
The claim gained traction in 2020 and resurfaced following the Senate hearing on Wednesday, July 29, during which Fauci repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment while facing intense questioning from Republican senators led by Rand Paul.
The hearing was based on allegations that Fauci misled Congress about the origins of Covid-19, government-funded research, pandemic policies, and federal recordkeeping.
During the hearing, he denied any wrongdoing and argued that the investigation was designed to support efforts to prosecute him.
