Sen. Rand Paul has renewed his legal inquiry into the conduct of former National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Chief Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was a leading figure in the US response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Paul is challenging Fauci’s claim before Congress that the US government had never funded any “gain-of-function research” in China, where the outbreak reportedly originated.
In February 2020 emails released last week, Fauci wrote that “scientists in Wuhan University are known to have been working on gain-of-function experiments to determine molecular mechanisms associated with bat viruses adapting to human infection, and the outbreak originated in Wuhan.”
Although these emails do not constitute direct evidence of wrongdoing on Fauci’s part, they reveal potential discrepancies between his sworn testimony before Congress and certain facts he knew at the time.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report last month indicating that Dr. Fauci may have misrepresented information when he testified under oath before a Senate committee concerning NIH funding for Chinese laboratories engaged in such research.
The Daily Mail reported that “the Wuhan Institute of Virology and Wuhan University did receive NIH funding.”
The Daily Caller Reported:
Sen. Rand Paul is continuing his legal pursuit of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the now-retired chief of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who was the face of the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Paul has accused Fauci of lying to Congress over his claim that the U.S. government never funded dangerous gain-of-function research in China, where the outbreak reportedly began.
In 2021, Fauci testified before a Senate committee where the Kentucky Republican was a member and said under oath that the U.S. “has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology” in Wuhan, China.
But in newly released emails dated February 1, 2020, the then-NIAID director wrote that “scientists in Wuhan University are known to have been working on gain-of-function experiments to determine that molecular mechanisms associated with bat viruses adapting to human infection, and the outbreak originated in Wuhan.”
While those emails do not contain smoking gun evidence of guilt, Fauci, under oath, denied that the National Institutes of Health, under which his agency fell, did not fund such research.
In light of this new evidence, Sen. Paul tweeted that he had referred Dr. Fauci again to the Department of Justice for criminal investigation…
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