Ex-ABC News correspondent claims network overhauled his COVID lab leak report after sending copy to Fauci

Ex-ABC News correspondent Terry Moran made an explosive claim this week about his former employer and how it allegedly overhauled a report he led on the COVID lab leak theory after running it first by Dr.

Anthony Fauci .

In an interview published Friday by "The Fifth Column" podcast, Moran recalled a time he said he felt the "heavy hand of censorship" at the Disney-owned network.

Moran said in early 2021, he had seen discussions from "smart and serious" people online floating the possibility that COVID had leaked from a lab and that ABC's "Nightline" allowed him to pursue a story about the theory.

Moran recalled talking to various scientists and Trump administration officials in a piece that he said did not make any conclusive claims but nevertheless "laid it out." FAUCI'S DIARY SHOWS HE FED QUESTIONS TO JOURNALISTS, BUILT FRIENDSHIPS WITH MEDIA FIGURES "We broke a little news that that lab had been funded by the Chinese military, despite the 'Bat Lady' [Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli] saying no, it hadn't...

And we kind of laid it out," Moran said .

"And at the end of the day, my own personal feeling was, you know, it's probably a little bit more likely it's natural.

But if you told me it had leaked from the lab, fine.

It's probably not cooked up.

It's probably not a ‘Frankenvirus.’" "And the day that it's supposed to air, it gets reviewed, and it comes back to me, and it is incomprehensible," Moran continued.

"And I had never been angrier.

I'm in the booth–" "Are these lawyers?" podcast co-host Michael Moynihan asked.

"Lawyers, standards and, I was told, Fauci," Moran responded.

"And I said, 'I can't do this.' And they're going to air and it's a 15-minute piece or whatever.