Sen. Rand Paul wants a determination if federal institutions have "undue influence on the science and the research that is done by the country for Americans," Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator under former President Donald Trump, said on Newsmax, Tuesday.
Paul most likely informed Congress about a letter he sent to the Department of Justice over two years ago which addressed concerns he had about Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Paul, R-Ky., sent an official criminal referral two years ago to the DOJ alleging Fauci had lied to Congress about gain-of-function research and, over the weekend, he sent a letter to Congress to share evidence for Fauci's alleged lie.
"To me, that is the bigger question that still has to be answered because we're still having issues with the health of the country, particularly in the rural areas and among tribal nations," Birx said on Newsmax's "John Bachman Now."
In the letter, Paul noted that Fauci had contradicted himself in an email to Health and Human Services.
"This directly contradicts everything he said in the committee hearing to me, denying absolutely that they funded any gain of function, and it's absolutely a lie," Paul tweeted Saturday. "That's why I sent an official criminal referral to the DOJ."
Paul is asking for an investigation of Fauci. Birx, when asked if she thinks a probe is warranted, said that depends on what Fauci meant in his email.
"I haven't seen the context of that and how he was answering, and I think that's really critically important," she said. "I think the question that you're also trying to get to is, Have we addressed gain-of-function and have we addressed research that we fund around the world?"
She added that "we still have not put controls in place that would prevent this lab-type accident from happening in the future, if that's what occurred."
Dr. Ben Carson, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary, who also appeared on Newsmax on Tuesday, agreed that gain-of-function research is "extraordinarily dangerous," and it's worrisome that there was some knowledge that it was going on but no attempt to stop it.
Birx added that standards have to change and that the U.S. must be involved.
"We shouldn't be funding research in countries that aren't willing to control their own laboratories," she said. "If they were willing to bring this to America, and let's be clear who was at risk, the community was at risk, but also the Americans who are working in that facility that had no controls for safety whatsoever."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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