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Dr. Anthony Fauci is facing a subpoena from Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to appear before his panel in July.
In a post online late Monday, Paul said Fauci backed out of a voluntary agreement to testify in front of the committee this month.
“Last week, Anthony Fauci notified us he will NOT voluntarily testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, even though he had previously agreed to do so,” Paul wrote on social platform X.
“Therefore, today I have issued a subpoena requiring him to testify before the Committee, in public, next month,” he added.
This is Paul’s first subpoena as chair of the committee. He gained the power last year when the panel voted to allow its chair to issue unilateral subpoenas.
Paul has been laser-focused on Fauci, the nation’s former top infectious diseases doctor, for his role in allegedly covering up the U.S.’s involvement in risky viral research in a Chinese lab that he says created the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.
The two men clashed repeatedly during heated Senate hearings when Fauci was leading the country’s pandemic response during the Biden administration.
Paul has claimed without hard evidence that the virus was manufactured in a Chinese lab and somehow escaped, and that Fauci and other top officials conspired to convince the public that the “lab leak” idea was a preposterous conspiracy theory. He blames Fauci for the tens of millions of COVID-19 deaths worldwide.
Paul has also called for Fauci to be indicted for what the senator said was lying to Congress under oath about gain-of-function research.
“We’ve been negotiating with him for material and for testimony. This has gone on for some time. He slow-walked us and slow-walked us. Finally agreed to come in voluntarily … then last week he says he’s not coming in,” Paul said in a CNBC interview Tuesday.
“With this subpoena power, we will bring him in, unless he fights this in court,” he added.
English (US) ·