“It’s a felony punishable by five years in jail,” Paul said in an evening interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity. “I don’t think Biden Department of Justice will do anything with it, but … it is very dangerous to have public officials who we need to have trust in coming and lying to us. But he has lied dozens of times. Usually he tells us it’s for our own good.”
Paul has maintained for months that Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), lied to Congress about whether his agency funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is intended to enhance the transmissibility of pathogens like Covid-19. He sent a criminal referral on the matter to Attorney General Merrick Garland in July, asking him to investigate.
More than 900 pages of documents from the National Institutes of Health — NIAID’s parent agency — obtained and published by The Intercept this week indicated the NIH did provide $3.1 million in funding to the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance to study bat coronaviruses similar to Covid-19. The group spent $599,000 contracting the Wuhan Institute of Virology to study coronaviruses likely to infect humans. The findings have prompted fresh outcry from critics — and flashbacks to some fiery congressional exchanges between Paul and Fauci.
Earlier today
White House Press Secretary Psaki was asked if documents published by The Intercept prove that National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci mislead Congress.
“NIH has refuted that reporting,” she said. “NIH has never approved any research that would make a coronavirus more dangerous to humans.”
She said the coronavirus included in the report that NIH supported was a different strain of the virus from the COVID-19 strain the world is currently battling.
“So what he said was correct,” Psaki added.
