Recently, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) followed through on a key promise, which involves sending a criminal referral regarding Dr. Fauci to the DoJ for purportedly lying to Congress.
Paul forewarned that the criminal referral was coming during an appearance on Fox News, informing Sean Hannity that a criminal referral would be imminently sent to the DoJ. The referral would allege that Fauci openly lied to Congress regarding whether or not the NIH was responsible for funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, widely believed to be the cause of the COVID virus.
“He should be punished,” given that “he’s lying about whether or not he funded gain-of-function research,” Paul asserted.
Following through on his promise, Paul sent a criminal referral to AG Merrick Garland just days ago.
As part of the referral, Paul “[urges] the [DoJ] to open an investigation into testimony” delivered by Dr. Fauci on May 11, 2021 to the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Dr. Fauci serves as the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the National Institutes of Health has so far denied providing any funding to the Wuhan laboratory, specifically funding allocated to gain-of-function research.
In addition, Paul also informed Garland about various comments that had been made by Dr. Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist. This past May, Dr. Ebright asserted that the research funded by the NIH “matches, indeed, epitomizes” the explicit definition of “gain-of-function research of concern.” In fact, the concerns were so great that federal funding for this type of research was subsequently “paused” from 2014-2017.
Paul also pressed Garland to start a review into whether or not Fauci may have violated 18 U.S.C. § 1001, which sets the parameters for the presumed crimes committed by Dr. Fauci. Specifically, this law makes it a crime to present “any materially false, fictions, or fraudulent statement or representation” over the course of any type of “review” or “investigation” being conducted by Congress.
In his criminal referral to the DoJ, Paul asks the department to consider “whether Dr. Fauci’s statements to Congress on May 11, 2021” constitute a violation of that statue, as well as any others.
Despite the salient points raised by Paul, it is unclear whether or not the DoJ will pursue a formal investigation into the matter concerning Fauci, given that a criminal referral constitutes a request for additional investigation to be conducted.