Dr. Anthony Fauci lashed out at Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Tuesday for suggesting he lied to Congress when he claimed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) never funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan.
Paul began the tense exchange by implying that Fauci perjured himself when he last testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on May 11.
“Dr. Fauci, as you are aware, it is a crime to lie to Congress,” Paul said, adding that such is a felony punishable by up to five years in jail. “On your last trip to our committee on May 11, you stated that the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
Referencing a paper by Dr. Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Virology Lab, which claimed the NIH did, in fact, fund her research into SARS-related coronaviruses, Paul asked, “Knowing it is a crime to lie to Congress, do you wish to retract your statement?”
“Senator Paul, I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement,” a visibly angry Fauci responded. “This paper that you are referring was judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not being gain-of-function.”
Paul later interjected: “You take an animal virus and you increase transmissibility to human, you’re saying that is not gain of function?”
“That is correct,” Fauci replied, then lashed out at Paul himself. “Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly, and I want to say that officially. You do not know what you are talking about!”
Paul went on to allege that Fauci is dancing around the definition of “gain-of-function research” to “obscure responsibility” for the pandemic.
“We don’t know,” Paul said of the origins of the virus. “We don’t know if it did come from the lab, but all the evidence is pointing that it came from the lab, and there will be responsibility for those who funded the lab, including yourself.”
“I totally resent that,” Fauci shot back. “If anybody is lying here, senator, it is you.”
Watch:
Paul later tweeted the paper he entered into the record, writing, “MIT biologist Kevin Esvelt reviewed this paper that was published with financial assistance from Dr. Fauci’s NIH/NIAID and concluded ‘certain techniques that the researchers used seemed to meet the definition of gain-of-function.’”
This is an excerpt from The Daily Wire.
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