Sen. Paul Calls for Fauci's Firing: Americans 'Very Disturbed at How Much He's Lied'

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., says President Joe Biden should fire Dr. Anthony Fauci "just for lack of judgment, if nothing else."

"He's probably never going to admit that he lied," Paul told "Axios on HBO," in reference to Fauci's denial that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded of gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

"He's gonna continue to dissemble, and try to work around the truth, and massage the truth."

An NIH spokesman for Dr. Fauci told Vanity Fair this week that Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been "entirely truthful," but a new letter from the agency sent to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce this week belatedly acknowledges the NIH's support for virus-enhancing research.

The letter says EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that partners with laboratories to research and prevent disease outbreaks, did engineer a bat coronavirus to become potentially more infectious to humans. The NIH explained this as an "unexpected result" of the research it funded, which was conducted in partnership with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. NIH also said EcoHealth violated the terms of its grant conditions, which stated that the group had to report if its research increased a pathogen’s viral growth by tenfold.

Fauci told Congress in May that "the NIH has not ever and does not now, fund gain of function research."

Paul told Axios, "I think that people across the country are very disturbed at how much he’s lied, basically" and also said Senate Republicans are calling for an investigation and hearings into the matter. 

• NIH Letter Shows Fauci Lied to Congress About Gain-of-Function Research Funding
• Trump Jr.: Fauci, Collins Will Blame Others for Gain-of-Function 'Lies'