China was going to do bioweapon research and there was nothing we or anyone else could do about it.
Quietly funding research in Wuhan was a way for the US IC to keep an eye on what China was doing.
Something from that lab escaped. It's not clear or particularly relevant to me whether what escaped was directly involved in the particular experiments we funded. In my mind if the US funded 50 experiments and China funded 50 other experiments of categorically the same type, and one of those 100 escaped, both are culpable regardless of whether it was on of our 50 or their 50.
Fauci and other officials can't just come out and say "This is part of a top secret weapons/intelligence program where we were using this funding to spy on China." And so they will lie in public. They will lie under oath. And there will be no consequence because the people (Congress/Presidents/etc) with the classified truth are all similarly culpable (they probably okayed/funded it).