Sen. Rand Paul vows to probe Anthony Fauci if GOP wins back Senate in 2022

02/08/2022 / By Kevin Hughes

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said he plans to deliver a subpoena for Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) adviser Anthony Fauci’s records if Republicans reclaim the Senate in the 2022 midterms and he becomes a committee head.

Paul, who is also a physician, could become the next Senate Health Committee chairman should the GOP flip the current 50-50 Senate. North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, the ranking member of the committee, is retiring at the end of his term.

“If we win in November, if I’m chairman of a committee, if I have subpoena power, we’ll go after every one of [Fauci’s] records. We’ll have an investigator go through this piece-by-piece because we don’t need this to happen again,” Paul told podcaster Lisa Boothe.

Paul and Fauci have clashed over vaccines, masks and the origins of COVID-19 during Senate hearings on the federal government’s COVID-19 response.

Paul believes Fauci and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) sent funding to a virology lab in Wuhan, China, which was based near the first reported outbreak of COVID-19. New emails written last month suggests that Fauci was privately informed by key scientists that it is “highly unlikely” that COVID-19 had a natural origin. (Related: Sen. Rand Paul: Dr. Fauci should testify under oath about money given to Wuhan lab)

And prior to that, emails showed British zoologist Peter Daszak thanking Fauci. Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance has also received federal funding to study bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

“I just wanted to say a personal thank you on behalf of our staff and collaborators, for publicly standing up and stating that the scientific evidence supports a natural origin for COVID-19 from a bat-to-human spillover, not a lab release from the WIV,” Daszak told Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

During the Senate hearings, Fauci denied that U.S. funding was used for “gain of function” research or studies into making diseases more contagious.

“And yet when people talk about gain of function, they make that implication which I think is unconscionable to do, to say, well, maybe that research led to SARS-CoV-2. So, things are getting conflated, that should not be conflated,” Fauci said during an October 2021 interview with ABC News.

Although the origin of the virus has not been settled, some U.S. intelligence officials think that it may have leaked from the Wuhan lab. They also cited China’s reluctance to cooperate in an investigation into the origins of COVID-19.

“China’s cooperation most likely would be needed to reach a conclusive assessment of the origins of COVID-19. Beijing, however, continues to hinder the global investigation, resist sharing information and blame other countries, including the United States,” stated a report from the U.S. intelligence community published last summer.

Fauci learned nothing from pandemic

Meanwhile, Paul denounced Fauci at a Senate hearing last November over gain-of-function research in Wuhan and called for his resignation, alleging that the latter has “learned nothing from this pandemic.”

Paul roasted the director of the NIAID, a branch of the NIH, for denying that the virus research was funded by the NIH prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Gain-of-function could cause a pandemic even worse next time. [It] could endanger civilization as we know it,” Paul said.

The conservative senator claimed that NIH-funded scientists “created viruses not found in nature” and that Fauci “misled” Americans by refusing to acknowledge it.

“Your repeated denials have worn thin and the majority of Americans, frankly, don’t believe you. Your persistent denials are not just a stain on your reputation but are a clear and present danger to the country and to the world. You appear to have learned nothing from this pandemic. I think it’s time you resign,” Paul said.

Paul added that regardless of whether the viruses made at the WIV were connected to COVID-19, similar research funded by the NIH could start another pandemic. He also stated that Fauci changed the definition of the term gain-of-function in order to deny it had occurred.

Criminal investigation on Fauci

Paul had also requested last July that Attorney General Merrick Garland criminally investigate Fauci for lying on his Senate testimony in which the top infectious disease expert of President Joe Biden said that the NIH never funded gain-of-function research at the WIV.

Fauci maintained that the NIH grants did not bankroll gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab and that the agency has regularly defended U.S. funding going to bat coronavirus research in China. But he also affirmed that he doesn’t actually know what the secretive Chinese lab has been doing.

Unresolved in Paul’s criminal referral is Fauci’s testimony before Congress on May 11, 2021, when he denied under oath that the NIH financed gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab. Paul also said the NIH grants that went to the EcoHealth Alliance provided capital to the Wuhan lab that carried out covert gain-of-function experiments and worked with China’s military.