Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is continuing his investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, and he wants answers from Dr. Anthony Fauci.
In his new role as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Paul issued subpoenas to 14 agencies from the outgoing Biden administration, aiming to expand on previous congressional investigations into the COVID-19 virus and risky taxpayer-funded gain-of-function research. It is unclear who from each agency will eventually be deposed, but a Fauci deposition is possible.
“After Anthony Fauci’s preemptive pardon, there are still questions to be answered,” Paul said in a statement following the issuance of his subpoenas. “The Committee issued subpoenas to the NIH [National Institutes of Health] and 13 other agencies for their involvement in risky gain-of-function research.”
The investigation’s goal will be to criticize the process that allowed this dangerous research, which could have led to the pandemic, to take place in a foreign country under unsafe protocols, and to ensure that there is adequate oversight and review going forward, ensuring that a mistake of this magnitude never occurs again.”
While former President Joe Biden preemptively pardoned Fauci to protect him from political repercussions under the new Trump administration, legal experts have questioned the pardon’s validity.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Baily told Fox News that because Biden’s own Justice Department stated that he lacked the mental faculties to be held criminally liable for improper handling of classified documents, it could be argued that he also lacked the mens rea to grant pardons to people like Fauci.
Furthermore, the pardon Fauci received only covers his actions between January 2014 and the date of his pardon. As a result, refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena may result in criminal charges.
Paul’s investigation will expand on a previous bipartisan probe launched by the Senate Homeland Security Committee last year into the national security threats posed by “high-risk biological research and technology in the United States and abroad.”
A second investigation, led by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Permanent Select Subcommittee on Investigations, will look into concerns in the new Congress about the COVID-19 pandemic, including a review of Fauci’s email communications.
Since the pandemic began, Paul has sent out dozens of requests for information on the origins of the COVID-19 virus and gain-of-function research.
Last year, he released documents claiming that government officials from at least 15 federal agencies were aware in 2018 that China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was developing a coronavirus similar to COVID-19.
The WIV has been a focal point in the debate over the origins of COVID-19, as it was later discovered that American scientist Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance was using taxpayer funds to conduct risky research on the novel bat virus derived from the WIV prior to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Earlier this month, the Department of Health and Human Services prohibited Daszak and the EcoHealth Alliance from receiving federal funds for five years.
Meanwhile, Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), told Congress in May 2021 that the NIH “has never and does not now fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
The Trump administration is reportedly preparing an executive order to halt all U.S. funding for gain-of-function research.
Federal officials are still divided on where the COVID-19 virus came from. Three agencies — the Department of Energy, the FBI, and the CIA — have determined that the most likely origin narrative is the lab leak theory, but others in the intelligence community and throughout the federal government say they cannot conclude that a lab leak was the most likely scenario, or that a natural origin scenario is most likely.
According to a declassified intelligence report published in 2021 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, if a lab leak was the catalyst for the COVID-19 pandemic, it was most likely an accident.
Representatives for Paul declined to comment on this report, and Fauci did not respond to a request for comment.
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