In November 2021, Sen. Rand Paul asked White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci during a Senate hearing if the National Institutes of Health supported gain of function research in Wuhan, China.
Fauci staunchly denied the funding and Paul’s lab leak theory as it pertained to the origins of COVID19.
“It makes me very uncomfortable to have to say something, but he is egregiously incorrect in what he says,” Fauci said of Paul.
Rand Paul to Dr. Fauci: "Until you accept responsibility, we're not going to get anywhere close to trying to prevent another lab leak of this dangerous sort of experiment. You won't admit that it's dangerous, and for that lack of judgment, I think it's time that you resign." pic.twitter.com/pwa3wbQ1jq
— The Hill (@thehill) November 4, 2021
The New York Times reported on Sunday, “New intelligence has prompted the Energy Department to conclude that an accidental laboratory leak in China most likely caused the coronavirus pandemic, though U.S. spy agencies remain divided over the origins of the virus, American officials said on Sunday.”
“The conclusion was a change from the department’s earlier position that it was undecided on how the virus emerged,” the report continued.
New intelligence has prompted the Energy Department to conclude that an accidental laboratory leak in China most likely caused the coronavirus pandemic, though American spy agencies remain divided over the origins of the virus, American officials said. https://t.co/73eo1egaCl
— Tim O'Brien (@TimOBrien) February 26, 2023
It’s not just the Energy Department that has now come to this conclusion.
The Times added, “In addition to the Energy Department, the F.B.I. has also concluded, with moderate confidence, that the virus first emerged accidentally from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a Chinese lab that worked on coronaviruses.”
Paul grilled Fauci at multiple hearings over the origins of COVID and whether the NIH-funded Wuhan lab could have been the culprit. At each turn, Fauci denied the possibility and accused Paul of being dishonest in his questioning.
The establishment media more often accused Paul or the Right of targeting Fauci rather than following up on the validity of the senator’s claims. A May 2021 Washington Post fact-check gave Paul’s claims “two Pinocchios.”
At the time, for many, and certainly now in retrospect, Paul appeared to be fishing for facts, while Left partisans appeared to be more interested in scoring political points.
.@MaddowBlog: Yesterday was the fifth time Sen. Paul tried to quarrel with Dr. Fauci. If the senator thinks the exchanges have gone well for him, he's mistaken. Put another way, Fauci explained that Paul didn't know what he was talking about. https://t.co/hAdW2OhtaJ
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) May 12, 2021
Dr. Fauci slams Rand Paul and says the right-wing nutjobs’ conspiracy theory is “molecularly impossible”pic.twitter.com/UShm3NZIbP
— Brad Bo 🇺🇸 (@BradBeauregardJ) October 24, 2021
Republican candidates, wooing Trump voters, have made Dr. Anthony S. Fauci their newest boogeyman. “I didn’t make myself a polarizing figure,” Dr. Fauci said in an interview. “I’ve been demonized by people who are running away from the truth.” https://t.co/VnZoQuIQYv
— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) February 7, 2022
Speaking on the lab leak theory posed by Paul in October 2021, a defiant Fauci told ABC News that “It is molecularly impossible for those viruses that were worked on to turn into” Covid-19.
“I obviously totally disagree with Senator Paul. He's absolutely incorrect. Neither I nor Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the NIH, lied or misled about what we’ve done,” Dr. Anthony Fauci tells @GStephanopoulos in response to NIH letter on Wuhan lab. https://t.co/8mPfMgivjt pic.twitter.com/YUCB6ihFiF
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 24, 2021
Here’s the full Fauci quote, “There’s all of this concern about what’s gain of function or what’s not, with the implication that that research led to SARS-CoV-2, and Covid-19, which, George, unequivocally anything that knows anything about viral biology and phylogeny of viruses know that it is molecularly impossible for those viruses that were worked on to turn into SARS-CoV-2 because they were distant enough molecularly that no matter what you did to them, they could never, ever become SARS-CoV-2.”
Paul wrote in a November 2021 op-ed, “Why so many machinations and word manipulations? Because ultimately, we’re talking about culpability here. NIH, under Dr. Fauci’s tutelage, funded research in Wuhan that used recombinant genetics to merge unknown bat coronaviruses with a known pandemic pathogen, the SARS virus.”
“The American people deserve to know how this pandemic started, to know if the NIH funded research that may have caused this pandemic, and to remove from office anyone, such as Dr. Fauci, who let this happen,” he added.
The Energy Department apparently disagrees with Anthony Fauci, with it now believing that COVID might have originated in an overseas lab.
Rand Paul agrees. He’s been saying this for nearly two years. Now the Biden administration appears to be catching up.
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