Rand Paul Dresses Down Dr. Fauci in Heated Hearing Opener for ‘Aiding and Abetting the Crime’ of Covid Lockdowns

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) wasted no time digging into Dr. Anthony Fauci at a Wednesday hearing, accusing the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of “aiding and abetting the crime” of Covid lockdowns.

Fauci appeared before the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee following the public release of his Covid “diary,” revealing Fauci’s cozy relationship with many in the press during the pandemic.

Paul gave the hearing’s opening statement, where he laid into Fauci and argued his influence directly led to states like California and New York shutting down businesses and schools during the pandemic.

“Covid lockdowns, however, could have never been with you aiding and abetting the crime,” he told Fauci.

Paul also attacked Fauci over the health official’s long-standing argument that evidence points to an animal-to-human origin for Covid, rather than a lab leak.

Paul blasted Fauci, noting he’s a long-standing supporter of gain-of-function research, giving him an outside interest in pointing away from theories that Covid could have begun from a Wuhan lab leak. Gain-of-function research is the manipulation of organisms to better understand the effects of infectious diseases.

He said:

While you concluded publicly that Covid occurred naturally, your private record tells a different story. In early 2020, your handpicked virologist warned that the virus appeared to be manipulated in the lab. In a conference call concerning the origin of the virus, all but two of the participants believed deliberate insertion was possible. Your concern was not merely theoretical. That same week you led an urgent effort to determine whether your own agency had funded the research that were now under suspicion. Hours later your assistant reported that the Wuhan experiments had indeed been reviewed and approved by NIH. Those were not actions of officials who believe that a research-related origin was an absurd conspiracy theory. They were actions of officials urgently trying to determine whether their agency funding was connected to the research under discussion, connected to the pandemic.

Paul added, “You could not hide that your agency had funded the Wuhan research or your long history of defending gain-of-function research. The only alternative left was to argue that Covid-19 did not originate in the Wuhan lab.”

The senator and Fauci have long had a contentious relationship, with Paul being one of the most vocal critics of Fauci and the Covid lockdowns.

“You had an institutional interest in the public believing that federally-funded research had nothing to do with the pandemic. It was a conflict of interest from the very beginning,” he told Fauci.

Paul concluded his 10-plus minute opening by blasting Fauci’s legacy, saying he has lost the “trust” of the American people since the pandemic.

“It is the refusal to admit error that destroys trust. That loss of trust may be your most damaging legacy. Trust can’t be ordered. It has to be earned. No scientist is above scrutiny. No government official is beyond accountability. And no public servant has the right to treat the suffering of millions of Americans as a footnote to his preferred version of history,” he said.

Watch above via Fox News.

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