House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan says Republicans are building their case against Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“So, specifically before your committee and also before Rand Paul over in the Senate, Dr. Fauci has, of course, absolved himself of all funding of gain-of-function,” conservative podcaster Benny Johnson said in an interview with Jordan. “He said he didn’t know anything about it. It is verifiable and demonstrable that he lied. Now, there are codes in Congress. I have a code right here, 18 U.S. Code 1001.”
“Statements—false statements to Congress,” Johnson noted. “Says you can be imprisoned; says you can be imprisoned for eight years if you lie to Congress. It seems like there has never been a more clear-cut case of some individual lying to Congress.”
“Yeah, we can do it—there could be a referral, but you would refer to the Biden Justice Department,” Jordan responded. “I don’t know that — they’re going to pursue that, but you can do that. You could have one of the committees, and the Senate Judiciary Committee could make a referral. I doubt they will with the Democrats in charge.”
“We could do a referral potentially,” the Ohio Republican continued. “I would, frankly, prefer just to have Dr. Fauci come back in and take another round of questions here, but we’re building the case. You know, like, we had Dr. Redfield testify, and Chairman Wenstrup did. I thought he was—I thought he was great. As were the other witnesses that were brought in.”
Fauci says he’s gotten death threats because the GOP has demanded that he be prosecuted.
They don’t like that I constantly get death threats, you know. Someone somewhere has decided they want to hurt me and/or my family every time someone stands up and spews some drivel that is misinformation, disinformation, and blatant lies,” the man stated. “That is the regrettable aspect of it.”
“The things they’re saying are insane, and that’s about it.” However, when someone takes it personally and vents on you and your family, it can have a bad impact, he continued.
Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, gave Fauci a stern warning following his resignation in December of last year.
When asked if there was anything he would do differently about the COVID-19 outbreak, Fauci responded in an interview that he had no regrets about how he handled the pandemic.
Most likely, no public figure in the field of public health has erred in judgement more than Dr Fauci. During Senate oversight hearings into Fauci’s responses and recommendations regarding the pandemic, Paul frequently disagreed with Fauci. “The error in judgement was to fund gain-of-function research in a totalitarian country—fun research that allowed them to create super viruses that, in all likelihood, accidentally leaked into the public and caused seven million people to die,” Paul said.
In December 2021, Paul charged Fauci with lying to Congress and announced that he would be sending that matter to the Biden’s Justice Department.
Paul said in a Fox Business interview that he does not “have a lot of hope” that Merrick Garland, President Biden’s attorney general, will prosecute Fauci because he does not believe that Garland will “objectively look” at the chief White House medical adviser’s congressional testimony.
Paul stated, “We’ve forwarded him to the Department of Justice, but Merrick Garland is now pursuing parents who attend school board meetings.”
Paul then went on, “So I don’t have a lot of hope that Merrick Garland is looking at Fauci’s lying objectively,” before criticising the NIAID head with a scathing 12-word remark that read, “Fauci should go to prison for five years for lying to Congress.”