Fauci Facing Deposition as Senate Covid Investigations Intensify
Dr. Anthony Fauci is now facing a grilling before the U.S. Senate as investigations into the origins of Covid intensify in the new Congress.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is continuing his efforts to investigate the origins of the pandemic.
In his new position as chairman of the Senate’s Homeland Security committee, Paul wants answers from Fauci.
Paul issued subpoenas to 14 agencies from the outgoing Biden administration.
These subpoenas are aimed at building on past congressional investigations into COVID-19 and the virus’s links to Fauci’s dangerous taxpayer-funded gain-of-function research.
It is unclear who exactly from each agency will ultimately be deposed.
Fauci, who claims to be innocent, was recently granted a pre-emptive pardon from former President Joe Biden in the final days of his presidency.
Nevertheless, a Fauci deposition is still possible.
Paul has indicated that Fauci’s pardon suggests he has something to hide.
In a statement after announcing the issuance of his subpoenas, Paul said:
“In the wake of Anthony Fauci’s pre-emptive pardon, there are still questions to be answered.
“Subpoenas were sent from the Committee to NIH [National Institutes of Health] and 13 other agencies regarding their involvement in risky gain-of-function research.
“The goal of the investigation will be to critique the process that allowed this dangerous research, which may have led to the pandemic, to occur in a foreign country under unsafe protocols and to ensure that there is sufficient oversight and review going forward, making sure a mistake of this magnitude never happens again.”
While Biden preemptively pardoned Fauci, legal experts have questioned whether the move would even protect the former federal health official.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Baily suggested that the pardon may even be invalid.
Baily argues that since Biden’s own Justice Department indicated the former president lacked the mental faculties to be held criminally liable for improper handling of classified documents, it could be argued he also lacked the mens rea to issue pardons to people like Fauci.
Additionally, the pardon Fauci received only covers his actions from January 2014 to the date of his pardon.
As a result, a refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena could also potentially result in criminal charges.
Further, Fauci would not be unable to plead his Fifth Amendment rights because he could not incriminate himself by testifying due to the pardon.
Paul’s investigation will build on a previous bipartisan probe launched by the Senate’s Homeland Security committee last year looking into the national security threats posed by “high-risk biological research and technology in the U.S. and abroad.”
A second investigation is being launched by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), the chairman of the Permanent Select Subcommittee on Investigations.
Johnson’s probe will similarly investigate concerns in the new Congress surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and will include a review of email communications from Fauci.
Since the pandemic began, Paul has sent dozens of requests for information related to the origins of the COVID-19 virus and gain-of-function research.
Last year, his efforts revealed documents that he said show that government officials from at least 15 federal agencies knew in 2018 that China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was working on creating a coronavirus similar to COVID-19.
The WIV has been a centerpiece in the debate over the origins of COVID-19.
It was eventually discovered that American scientist Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance was using taxpayer dollars to conduct risky research on the novel bat virus out of the WIV prior to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Earlier this month, the Department of Health and Human Services barred Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance from receiving federal funding for five years.
Meanwhile, Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), told Congress in May 2021 that the NIH “has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
The Trump administration is reportedly preparingan executive order to halt all U.S. funding going toward gain-of-function research.
Federal officials remain split on where the COVID-19 virus originated from.
Three agencies — the Department of Energy, the FBI, and the CIA — have determined that the most likely origin narrative is the lab leak theory.
However, others in the intelligence community and throughout the federal government say they can either not conclude that a lab leak was the most likely scenario, or they say that a natural origin scenario is most likely.
A declassified intelligence report from 2021, published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, posited that if a lab leak did turn out to be the catalyst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was likely the result of an accident.
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