Sen. Rand Paul on Tuesday called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Dr. Anthony Fauci, alleging Fauci committed perjury when, during congressional hearings, he said the U.S. did not fund gain-of-function research related to SARS-CoV-2 origins at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China
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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Tuesday called on Washington’s top U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecuting attorney to push an investigation into Dr. Anthony Fauci for allegedly lying under oath before Congress about COVID-19 origins.
In a letter to Matthew Graves, a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney, Paul demanded the agency investigate Fauci for allegedly committing perjury during a congressional hearing in 2021, when Fauci said COVID-19 did not originate in a Chinese lab.
“I don’t think there’s ever been a clearer case of perjury in the history of government testimony, and I don’t say that lightly,” Paul told Fox News.
Perjury is a federal offense that can carry a prison sentence of up to five years.
“Dr. Fauci testified that ‘the NIH [National Institutes of Health] has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology‘ … In a subsequent hearing, I warned Dr. Fauci of the criminal implications of lying to Congress and offered him an opportunity to recant his previous statements.
“In response, Dr. Fauci stated that he had ‘never lied before the Congress’ and ‘d[id] not retract that statement.’”
Fauci’s testimony is “inconsistent with facts that have since come to light,” Paul added.
The letter, which was first reported by DailyMail.com, comes just weeks after Paul submitted an “official criminal referral” to the DOJ against Fauci, who from 1984 to 2022 directed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
Last month, emails and Slack messages embedded within a report by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic revealed an admission by Fauci that gain-of-function research was being conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
“Further,” Paul pointed out in his letter, “gain-of-function research in Wuhan was funded by the agency Dr. Fauci led.”
Paul wrote:
“A paper entitled ‘Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus’ described in-depth the research carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and funded through NIAID award R01AI110964.”
Moreover, a June 14 report published by the Government Accountability Office concluded the WIV and Wuhan University received NIH funding, he added.
Meanwhile, newly-released documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request brought by OpenTheBooks showed “conclusively” that statements made before Congress by both Fauci and then-NIH leader Lawrence Tabak D.D.S., Ph.D., — when asked about third-party royalties paid throughout the COVID-19 pandemic — were “misleading, if not outright false.”
The FOIA documents revealed a payment stream of roughly $350 million in royalties to the NIH and NIH-funded scientists that was previously hidden by the NIH, OpenTheBooks said.
In response to an inquiry by The Defender today, the DOJ confirmed that Graves received Paul’s letter but declined to comment further.