The statute of limitations on Dr. Anthony Fauci’s criminal referral for lying to Congress about gain-of-function research expires Monday, but Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is vowing to keep up the pressure on “the COVID coverup” with a Senate hearing this week.
“David Morens, Dr. Fauci’s top advisor, was indicted, but Fauci himself still walks free,” Paul, who has long pressed Fauci in heated exchanges in congressional hearings, wrote this week on X, continuing his urging of the Justice Department to pick up charges from his criminal referral despite former President Joe Biden issuing a sweeping preemptive pardon of Fauci on his last night in office Jan. 19, 2025.
“The DOJ has 5 days to indict Fauci before the statute of limitations runs out. The clock is ticking. Justice cannot wait.”
The Biden pardon and Fauci’s statute of limitations expiration Monday shields the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and chief medical advisor to Biden, but Morens was indicted late last month for having “deliberately concealed information and falsified records in an effort to suppress alternative theories regarding the origins of COVID-19.”
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“For years, I warned that Fauci and his inner circle buried the truth about Wuhan,” Paul wrote Wednesday on X. “Now his closest adviser has been indicted.
“Fauci lied to Congress under oath. The statute of limitations expires in 5 days. Will the DOJ finally indict Fauci?”
The Trump Justice Department under former Attorney General Pam Bondi or acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has made no public statements about bringing charges.
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“While we can all have our beefs with Congress, this isn’t in our hands any longer,” Paul wrote Thursday on X. “I DID the work, investigated, and sent multiple CRIMINAL referrals to the DOJ.
“Whether he is indicted or not now is not up to Congress. It is up to the DoJ, and no one else.”
“He lied to Congress about NIH funding dangerous gain-of-function research in Wuhan and engaged in the worst cover-up in modern medical history,” Paul added in another X post. “The American people want Fauci behind bars.”
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President Donald Trump has publicly rejected the Biden autopen pardons as having no force or “legal effect,” but there is no precedent for a new president nullifying a past president’s pardons, because they would potentially render presidential pardon authority ultimately powerless against a new administration’s agenda.
“Anyone receiving ‘Pardons,’ ‘Commutations,’ or any other Legal Document so signed, please be advised that said Document has been fully and completely terminated, and is of no Legal effect,” Trump wrote in December on Truth Social.
Just two days after the Fauci clock runs out, Paul is chairing a Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs committee hearing with a “COVID coverup” whistleblower Wednesday.
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“Next week I’m holding a hearing with a whistleblower who will testify publicly about the COVID coverup,” Paul teased in an X post. “Mark your calendars: Wednesday, May 13 at 10 a.m.
“The truth is coming.”
Paul renewed a criminal referral to the DOJ last July to investigate whether Fauci’s May 2021 statements violated federal false-statements law. In the referral, Paul pointed to Fauci’s testimony that “the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
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Paul’s referral also noted Fauci later said he had “never lied before the Congress” and did “not retract that statement” after Paul warned him about the criminal implications of lying to Congress.
The referral cites a February 2020 email released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, in which Fauci wrote that “scientists in Wuhan University are known to have been working on gain-of-function experiments” involving bat viruses and human infection.
Paul argued that the email contradicted Fauci’s sworn testimony.
Paul also cited research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) that he said was funded under a NIAID award and involved combining spike genes from bat SARS-related coronaviruses with another coronavirus backbone to create chimeric viruses capable of infecting human cells.
“This research, conducted at the WIV and funded under NIAID Award R01AI110964, fits the definition of gain-of-function research,” the referral stated.
The criminal referral further cites a 2023 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that found the WIV and Wuhan University received NIH funding. According to Paul’s referral, the GAO said NIH funded a project that included “genetic experiments to combine naturally occurring bat coronaviruses with SARS and MERS viruses, resulting in hybridized coronavirus strains.”
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Anyone who makes a materially false statement in a congressional investigation or review can face fines and up to five years in prison.
Paul’s July referral also challenged the legal effect of a preemptive pardon Fauci received from Biden’s autopen.
“New information has revealed that these pardons were executed via autopen, with no documented confirmation that the President personally reviewed or approved each individual grant of clemency,” Paul wrote. “According to reports, White House staff authorized the use of the autopen to issue the clemency documents.
“This raises serious constitutional and legal concerns about the legitimacy of Dr. Fauci’s pardon.”
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Fauci has repeatedly denied lying to Congress, including forcefully to Paul himself in multiple congressional hearings.
“Dr. Fauci, knowing that it is a crime to lie to Congress, do you wish to retract your statement of May 11 [2021], where you claimed at the NIH never funded gain-of-function research and move on?” Paul asked in a July 2021 Senate hearing.
“Sen. Paul, I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement,” Fauci shot back.
“Let me finish!” Fauci added, when Paul tried to interject. “Sen. Paul, you do not know what you’re talking about, quite frankly. And I want to say that officially, you do not know what you’re talking about.”
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The nature of the alleged lie revolves around the definition and denials of gain-of-function research surrounding COVID-19.
“You’re dancing around this because you’re trying to obscure responsibility for four million people dying around them from a pandemic,” Paul said in the famed exchange, adding, “you are obviously obfuscating the truth.”
Fauci replied, “I’m not obfuscating the truth – you are.”
“You are implying that what we did was responsible for the deaths of individuals,” he added. “I totally resent that.”
Paul shot back, “It could have been.”
“If there is any lying here, senator, it is you,” Fauci said, shaking his finger at Paul.
Sitting members of Congress are provided immunity under the speech and debate clause of the Constitution, while most of those investigated by Congress and subject to testifying under oath, which Fauci did.
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