Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is renewing efforts to bring Dr. Anthony Fauci before Congress after he says newly surfaced emails show the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases ordered documents to be destroyed, contradicting his previous testimony under oath, according to reports.
Paul sent a letter to Fauci on Tuesday after the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee obtained docs showing that on two occasions, Fauci ordered NIH employees to delete emails.
"These documents suggest your direct involvement in efforts to conceal information related to the Committee's investigation and appear to contradict your previous testimony before Congress," Paul said in the letter, The Washington Times reported.
At issue is that in June 2024, in testimony before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Fauci denied ever deleting official work records or communications relating to "'to the Wuhan lab or the origins" of the COVID-19 virus.
Paul cited two emails, however, that contradict Fauci's answers. In one case, Fauci "directed then-NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins to 'Please delete this e-mail after you read it' " on Feb. 2, 2020. "In another email dated July 20, 2020, to an NIH employee [Fauci] stated, 'I do not want to engage any more with this nonsense. And so, please delete this e-mail after you read it,' " the Daily Mail reported.
The letter asked Fauci to appear before the end of the year and provided dates across the final three months to appear, according to the reports.
In July, Paul re-referred Fauci to the Justice Department over his 2021 testimony before Congress when he denied the NIH had funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan, which subsequent disclosures found to be a lie, Paul said.
However, Fauci was given a preemptive pardon by former President Joe Biden, which Paul also is challenging.
"In July 2023, I referred Dr. Anthony Fauci to the Department of Justice for lying under oath to Congress. His own emails directly contradicted his sworn testimony," Paul said in the July statement. "The New York Times reports Fauci was quietly pardoned by an autopen, operated by Biden's staff. If the President didn't authorize this pardon personally, then the Department has a duty to investigate and prosecute as it would any ordinary citizen. Fauci has been sainted by the extremist Left, but it doesn't erase his lying before Congress."
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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