Sen. Rand Paul says newly uncovered communications from Anthony Fauci’s government records point to additional destruction of federal documents and previously undisclosed gain-of-function research, disclosures he says prompted an unsuccessful effort to grant immunity to a longtime Fauci aide.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Rand Paul says his investigation into former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci has uncovered new communications involving the destruction of government records and previously unknown gain-of-function research programs.
Paul, R-Ky., said the material was found in records obtained from Fauci’s phone, computer and personal logs and helped drive his committee’s unsuccessful effort Wednesday to grant immunity to a former longtime Fauci assistant whose testimony investigators are seeking.
“We will have some more explosive information that comes out in the next week, though, that some of the communications between Anthony Fauci and his assistant involved some programs that are very worrisome, gain-of-function programs that we didn’t know existed until we came across these emails,” Paul said in an interview with Just the News, No Noise, according to a Just the News report.
Paul’s statements describe evidence his investigation is still evaluating. The newly referenced communications have not yet produced a public finding that Fauci illegally ordered records destroyed or that the research programs identified by investigators violated federal law.
Paul said his broader concern extends beyond Fauci to classified biological research being conducted under national security programs.
“It is our belief that most of the gain-of-function research that’s going on, and probably still goes on, is classified and done in the bioweapons or biodefense category, but they won’t tell us,” Paul said.
Gain-of-function is a broad term that can encompass experiments altering an organism to give it new or enhanced characteristics. The phrase has also been the subject of years of dispute over how particular research should be categorized and regulated.
Paul has argued that some experiments involving enhanced viral transmissibility or pathogenicity pose unacceptable risks, while Fauci has disputed Paul’s characterization of research funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Immunity Bid Fails on Party-Line Vote
Paul’s committee voted Wednesday on a resolution that would have authorized an application for a court order compelling testimony from Fauci’s former special assistant under a grant of immunity.
Federal law requires two-thirds of the full committee to approve such a request. The 15-member panel voted 8-7 along party lines, with all Republicans supporting the resolution and all Democrats opposing it, leaving Paul two votes short of the required 10.
Paul has not publicly identified the former assistant.
The committee said before the vote that the witness had served as Fauci’s longtime special assistant and was being sought as part of its investigation into COVID-19’s origins and what it calls “risky life sciences research.”
The aide appeared for a closed-door deposition last week with attorneys and invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination rather than answering the committee’s questions, according to Paul.
Paul said investigators are particularly interested in determining who directed the handling or deletion of Fauci-related records.
“By looking at Anthony Fauci’s logs that he was keeping on a government computer, we discovered that his assistant was bragging to him in one of the emails. ‘Hey, Dr. Fauci, I was able to destroy tons of your emails this weekend.’ Well, that’s illegal,” Paul said.
Paul’s statement is an allegation based on the committee’s interpretation of the records. Whether particular material qualified as a federal record, whether it was actually destroyed and whether any deletion constituted a violation would require examination of the underlying communications and applicable records laws.
The committee had previously released evidence it says indicates Fauci directed subordinates to delete federal records, allegations Fauci has disputed.
Paul said the committee hoped an immunity order would remove the aide’s potential criminal exposure and allow investigators to question her about the records.
“Your emails between each other for work from the executive branch are considered to be federal records, and so we wanted to ask her about this. We brought her in last Friday, and she brought lawyers, and she pleaded the Fifth Amendment,” he said.
“And so once she pled the Fifth, it was never our intention really to try to have her indicted. We wanted to know who gave her the orders.”
“We presume Anthony Fauci. How many years she’d been doing this? Whether it was hundreds or thousands of emails? What kind of topics? And so, really, we’re more interested in the guy who gave the orders because I think that’s where most of the culpability is. And so, we wanted to offer her immunity,” Paul said.
The assertion that Fauci gave such orders remains Paul’s presumption rather than an established finding.
Paul said he has not abandoned efforts to obtain the witness’s cooperation and suggested the matter could be referred to the Justice Department if no agreement is reached.
“Within a week or two, if we don’t get that cooperation, what’s going to happen is she will be referred to the Department of Justice, and see, they don’t have to vote at the Department of Justice. They don’t have to vote on indicting someone. They have to say they broke the law, and they don’t have to vote on offering someone immunity.
“It’s a typical way prosecutors act is you give immunity to the lower echelon people to get them to give information on who was giving the illegal orders to them, so they do have the ability to do it, and we keep hoping they will,” he added.
Paul Says Classified Research Is Being Shielded
Paul also described an internal congressional dispute over access to classified research programs.
He singled out Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., accusing him of opposing efforts to provide Paul’s committee with information related to classified biological research.
“There’s an internal fight in Congress,” Paul said. “So Tom Cotton is the chairman of the Intelligence Committee. He is doing everything he possibly can to prevent us from getting information about these programs. He has written to the Director of National Intelligence and said that he does not want any information shared with our committee.”
Cotton is currently chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
“If it goes to him, he might condescend if he decides to do so, to let us look at some information,” Paul continued. “But the problem is what we really need are scientists. And even when I oversee this, I ask the opinion of scientists because it’s classified. We have no assurance that any scientists with any kind of skepticism are looking over this and saying whether we should be doing this or not, and if you want to be alarmed by this.”
Those remarks reflect Paul’s account of the dispute. The material at issue is classified, limiting independent public assessment of his claims about the programs.
Paul said his concern is primarily that experiments intended for biodefense could themselves create serious laboratory risks.
“There is so much classified going on, and there has to be adults in the room. It can’t be well, ‘China’s doing it, so we’re going to do it.’ That’s essentially what the rule of thumb has been. If China does it, we do it, and we do need to be prepared to defend ourselves,” he said.
“But there are certain experiments where you’re creating viruses that are more transmissible through the air that are a death wish,” Paul continued. “It’s not that I suspect our government’s going to release it on purpose. I suspect an accident will happen.”
Fauci Previously Invoked Fifth Amendment
The latest dispute follows Fauci’s July 29 appearance before Paul’s committee under subpoena.
Fauci repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment and declined to answer substantive questions concerning COVID-19 origins, gain-of-function research and other issues. PBS reported that he invoked the right against self-incrimination more than 100 times during the hearing.
Paul subsequently pursued a contempt resolution against Fauci. The committee advanced it on a party-line vote in August.
The legal question surrounding Fauci’s Fifth Amendment invocation has itself been disputed because former President Joe Biden issued him a preemptive pardon before leaving office.
Some legal commentators have argued that the pardon removed Fauci’s ability to invoke the Fifth Amendment for pardoned conduct. That position was discussed in this legal analysis.
Others contend the pardon does not necessarily eliminate every conceivable risk of self-incrimination, including exposure involving conduct outside the pardon or possible future perjury allegations.
Former federal prosecutor Jessica Roth told PBS NewsHour that Fauci could reasonably believe testimony might be used to open new investigative avenues or expose him to a future perjury prosecution. PBS separately reported that Fauci said Paul’s repeated calls for prosecution contributed to his decision to invoke the Fifth Amendment.
Fauci has denied wrongdoing and has rejected accusations that he concealed evidence concerning COVID-19’s origins or improperly influenced scientists examining whether the pandemic began with a laboratory accident.
“The accusation being circulated that I influenced the scientists to change their minds by bribing them with millions of dollars in grant money is absolutely false, and simply preposterous,” Fauci told Congress.
“The second issue is a false accusation that I tried to cover up the possibility that the virus originated from a lab. In fact, the truth is exactly the opposite,” he added.
The origin of SARS-CoV-2 remains disputed. U.S. intelligence agencies have reached differing assessments, with some favoring a laboratory-related origin at varying confidence levels and others favoring natural emergence or remaining undecided. The available evidence has not produced a definitive public determination.
Paul’s latest claims introduce another element to the Senate investigation: communications he says connect Fauci’s office to previously undisclosed gain-of-function programs and evidence suggesting additional government records were destroyed.
For now, the former assistant whose testimony Paul sought remains unidentified and has not answered the committee’s questions.
Paul says investigators intend to continue pursuing both her testimony and records concerning the research.
“We will have some more explosive information that comes out in the next week,” he said.
Original article
Comments