Dr. Anthony Fauci is one of the more than 40 people who will be subpoenaed in January to testify before the House Oversight Committee about the origins of COVID-19, and Rep. Byron Donalds, a committee member, told Newsmax on Wednesday the hearings are part of the investigations to hold the Biden administration "accountable" and to determine if its actions were "within the confines of federal law."
"The reason why Dr. Fauci needs to come in is because he has not been clear," Donalds, a Florida Republican, told Newsmax's "National Report." "He's really muddied the waters about his role, or his agency's role in funding gain of function research at the lab in Wuhan, China. If we can't figure that out, then there's a whole history, the whole list of other things that could be problematic going down the line."
The law is "clear" against funding such research, said Donalds, but "it is also pretty clear that Fauci was doing this through the back door of some other groups around the globe to make sure this research was happening. We're going to get to the bottom of that."
Meanwhile, the "Twitter Files" have revealed that information was being shadowbanned on Twitter, but it's not yet known how much of that was related to the pandemic, said Donalds.
"A lot of people went on social media to just find out more about the virus," he said.
Fauci has testified before Congress, but it's been seen how he "evaded and dodged the point," said Donalds, adding that the Oversight Committee shouldn't just "turn the blind eye."
"We have a responsibility to hold the administration and all the various agencies accountable to do their jobs as set forth in the Constitution and federal law," said Donalds.
Donalds said it remains to be seen who else will be called to testify in upcoming House hearings, including in the Hunter Biden laptop case.
"We are going to dig into these issues with Twitter and not just with Twitter but big tech as well," said Donalds. "If we truly believe in protecting democracy, you have to protect free speech. You're not allowed to suppress it, even though you think it's in the best interests of people. That's not what the government should be doing. I'm not going to release too many names yet, but there's going to be more to come."
It's also not clear if Twitter owner Elon Musk will participate in the investigations.
"He has an enterprise to clean up and I think he's doing a great job cleaning up Twitter … we don't know if he's needed in the hearing, but the documents themselves will obviously be a part of that now," Donalds said.
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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