On July 20th Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) announced on Fox’s Sean Hannity that he will be sending the DoJ a criminal referral letter regarding Dr. Anthony Fauci Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The announcement came after a fiery round of testimony before the Senate from Fauci.
Hannity started the conversation by asking Senator Paul, “You kicked off your questioning of Dr. Fauci emphasizing federal law makes lying to Congress, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Is your belief based on the evidence Senator that he lied before Congress and broke the law?”
Rand quickly replied,
“Yes, and I will be sending a letter to the department of justice asking for a criminal referral because he has lied to Congress.”
The Post Millennial reported,
Paul said, “He’s been there for 40 years, probably 39 years too long, but he controls all the funding, so people are deathly afraid of him.”
“I get letters from scientists all the time. You can find them. They’re very distrustful of what he’s saying,” Paul added regarding Fauci, who has been director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984. “They don’t think he’s making sense. They don’t think he’s reading the science accurately, but they’re afraid to speak out because many of them are university scientists and they depend on NIH [National Institutes of Health] funds, and to cross him means it’s the last money you’ll ever get.”
The Heated Exchange That Started It All Crumbling Down Around Dr. Fauci
Senator Paul, began,
“Dr. Fauci, as you are aware, it is a crime to lie to Congress. Section 1.0.0.1 of the US Criminal Code creates a felony and a five-year penalty for lying to Congress. On your last trip to our committee on May 11th, you stated that the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wu Han Institute of Virology. And yet, gain of function research was done entirely in the Wu Han Institute by Dr. Shi and was funded by the NIH. I’d like to ask unanimous consent insert into the record the Wu Han virology paper entitled Discovery of a Rich Gene Pool of Bat SARS Related Coronaviruses. Please deliver a copy of the journal article to Dr. Fauci.”
The Senator for Kentucky went on to explain in excruciating detail that in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, with grant money from the National Institutes of Health gain of function research took place and that Dr. Fauci was aware of it despite that type of research being subject to a pause. Armed with information from Dr. Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist from Rutgers, Sen. Paul explained that Dr. Ebright “described this research in Wu Han as ‘the Wu Han lab used NIH funding to construct novel chimeric SARS related to coronaviruses able to infect human cells and laboratory animals.'”
In Dr. Ebright’s words, Paul continued “This research matches, indeed epitomizes the definition of gain of function research,”
Senator Paul then asked Dr. Fauci if, knowing that it is a crime to lie to Congress, he would like to retract his statement on May 11th when he claimed: “that the NIH never funded gains of function research in Wu Han.”
At this point, Dr. Fauci almost exploded out of his seat,
“Senator Paul, I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement. This paper that you were referring to was judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not being gain of function. What was … let me finish!”
According to Rev.com the rest of the exchange looked a bit like this:
Senator Paul: (53:25)
You take an animal virus and you increase its transmissibility to humans. You’re saying that’s not gain of function?
Dr. Fauci: (53:30)
Yeah, that is correct. And Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly. And I want to say that officially, you do not know what you are talking about, okay? You get one person … can I answer?
Senator Paul: (53:46)
This is your definition that you guys wrote. It says that scientific research that increases the transmissibility among animals is gain of function. They took animal viruses that only occur in animals, and they increased their transmissibility to humans. How you can say that is not gain a function –
Dr. Fauci: (54:06)
It is not.
Senator Paul: (54:07)
It’s a dance, and you’re dancing around this because you’re trying to obscure responsibility for 4 million people dying around the world from a pandemic.
Sen. Murray: (54:16)
Let’s let Dr. Fauci –
Dr. Fauci: (54:17)
I have to … well, now you’re getting into something. If the point that you are making is that the grant that was funded as a sub-award from EcoHealth to Wu Han created SARS- CoV-2, that’s where you were getting. Let me finish.
Senator Paul: (54:34)
We don’t know.
Dr. Fauci: (54:35)
Wait a minute.
Senator Paul: (54:35)
We don’t know that it didn’t come from the lab, but all the evidence is pointing that it came from the lab, and there will be responsibility for those who funded the lab, including yourself.
Dr. Fauci: (54:43)
I totally resent –
Dr. Fauci: (54:47)
I totally resent the lie that you are now propagating, senator, because if you look at the viruses that were used in the experiments that were given in the annual reports that were published in the literature, it is molecularly impossible.
Senator Paul: (55:07)
No one’s saying those viruses caused it. No one is –
Dr. Fauci: (55:09)
It is molecularly –
Senator Paul: (55:09)
– saying that those viruses caused the pandemic. What we’re alleging is the gain of function research was going on in that lab and NIH funded it.
Dr. Fauci: (55:18)
That is not –
Senator Paul: (55:18)
You can’t get away from it. It meets your definition and you are obfuscating the truth.
Dr. Fauci: (55:22)
I am not obfuscating the truth. You are the one –
Dr. Fauci: (55:27)
Let me just finish. I want everyone to understand that if you look at those viruses, and that’s judged by qualified virologists and evolutionary biologists, those viruses are molecularly impossible to result –
Senator Paul: (55:42)
No one’s saying they are. No one’s saying those viruses caused the pandemic.
Senator Paul: (55:45)
We’re saying they are gain of function viruses, because they were animal viruses that became more transmissible in human and you funded it. And you won’t admit the truth.
Dr. Fauci: (55:54)
And you’re implying –
Dr. Fauci: (56:01)
And you are implying that what we did was responsible for the deaths of individual. I totally resent that.
Senator Paul: (56:09)
It could have been. It could have been.
Dr. Fauci: (56:09)
And if anybody is lying here, senator it is you.
Dr. Paul, in addition to his office as a Senator, is also a trained medical Doctor and physician (yes, there IS a difference) specializing in Opthalmology with experience in cataract and glaucoma surgeries, LASIK procedures, and corneal transplants whereas Dr. Fauci is a physician-scientist more focused on clinical research.
In addition to their relationship in a professional context as an Executive Branch Director and a Senator, both should be bound by medical ethics in addition to the decorum appropriate a Senate hearing, but Fauci clearly crossed a line when he said, “Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly. And I want to say that officially, you do not know what you are talking about, okay?” eventually even accusing Senator Paul of lying.
