Jaime Metzl, who used to work for President Clinton, and also for then-Sen. Joe Biden, so not a wingnut, has said in detail WIV did gain of function research, albeit not on a coronavirus, as far as we know.
He adds that the the Wuhan CDC, just down the road, also did gain of function research, and this WAS ON bat coronaviruses, starting in 2015. That link is a long read but well worth it. Among other things, he VERY SPECIFICALLY notes that "gain of function" research is NOT "genetic engineering." Fauci knows this, but, IMO, he's hand-waving, gaslighting or whatever, and even if not actively conflating the two ideas himself, letting others do the lifting for him.
Update: Whether WIV's gain of function research deliberately increased transmissibility to humans or not is a different issue than gain of function as defined by Jamie Metzl et al as "gain of function"! This is where Fauci's hair-splitting comes in. As does Fauci's hairsplitting in calling GIF only when it makes a virus more dangerous to humans. No, it means ... gain in function! Period. And, this is important because if such a virus leaks, we don't know how it's going to further evolve after that. And, at that link, per Gregory Koblenz, the big issue is that we don't know what standards, if any, the National Institutes of Health has for calling an "enhancement" officially GIF by its standards. So, Fauci could claim NOTHING is GIF, for all you and I know.
The problem is enhanced by China's continued stonewalling of the US and WHO. That stonewalling is abetted by Fauci saying we should continue to fund Chinese research. Metzl does note that Fauci supports fuller investigation of WIV, but undercuts the push for that by saying we should continue to fund it.
How bad is some of this? Metzl says there's data at WIV that's not even available to all scientists who work at WIV. (That link of his at top is continually updated, by the way.)
NIH Director Francis Collins has also claimed the same as Fauci. Metzl politely calls him (and by extension, I guess, Fauci) "technically truthful" but, only because of the imprecision and Mack truck loopholes in NIH's definition. I'd rather go with others and call Collins as well as Fauci liars. They're both skilled bureaucrats and they know that in both private and government bureaucracies, definitions are written as they are for specific reasons.
If you're not a twosider, not a tribalist, I REALLY encourage you to bookmark that Metzl link.
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