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Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) vowed that “Anthony Fauci will answer to the American people” in an X post as he ramps up his investigation into the former top health official’s role in the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The investigation of COVID origins has been going on for several years,” Paul said on Fox News’s Sunday Futures with Maria Bartiromo. “The Biden administration’s stubbornness wouldn’t give us any of the documents. The Trump administration has been very cooperative; they’ve turned over virtually everything.”
At the center of Paul’s investigation is the claim that Fauci oversaw or approved federal funding connected to gain-of-function research, which involves studying viruses to assess how they might evolve.
The issue has remained at the center of congressional investigations into the origins of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 that was first identified in late 2019. The pandemic claimed more than 1.2 million lives in the United States and an estimated more than 7 million worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.
“What we know now, beyond a reasonable doubt, is that Anthony Fauci did, indeed, fund gain-of-function research,” Paul said, arguing that the work involved viruses becoming “more lethal, more attachable to human cells, and more infectious.”
Fauci has previously denied that U.S.-funded research directly caused COVID-19, and federal health agencies have maintained that grant oversight procedures were followed.
Paul alleged that early intelligence assessments were influenced regarding the virus’s origin. “A scientific commission within the CIA voted 6 to 1 to say it came from the lab,” he said, noting that this position later shifted under pressure.
Paul further asserted that Fauci privately acknowledged early in 2020 that the virus likely did not originate at a Wuhan wet market. “This was all misdirection. This was a conspiracy,” Paul said.
RAND PAUL SUBPOENAS FAUCI AFTER NO-SHOW FOR PREVIOUS PANEL REQUEST
Paul also raised questions about a preemptive pardon issued by former President Joe Biden in his final hours in office, calling it a “ten-year pardon on nonspecific crimes,” and suggesting its legality could be challenged in court.
As Paul’s subpoena moves forward, Paul said Fauci will ultimately have to respond. “He has not really gotten his just desserts on this, and we want to make sure that the American public and that history records that he was involved with funding this dangerous research that led to a pandemic that killed 15 million people; there needs to be repercussions,” Paul said.
