Rand Paul tells Charlie Kirk why he thinks Fauci is ‘most likely’ Biden pardon recipient ‘to be chargeable’

Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul told Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on Tuesday why he believes Dr. Anthony Fauci is the “most likely” recipient of a pardon from former President Joe Biden to be able to be criminally charged.

Fauci received a preemptive autopen pardon from Biden spanning back to 2014 during the final hours of his presidency on Jan. 20. Paul said on “The Charlie Kirk Show” that he thinks Fauci “committed a felony by lying to Congress” and that Biden’s autopen pardon may not hold up because the former president may not have been mentally present enough to know about it.

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“I do believe Anthony Fauci committed a felony by lying to Congress. So you have to charge him with a felony, take him to court, and then the court will decide whether or not the pardon is upheld,” Paul told Kirk. “You can argue till you’re blue in the face that you can’t do autopens and that maybe the president wasn’t aware of it. But the only way to actually do this is you have to charge someone who was pardoned. I think Anthony Fauci is the most likely to be chargeable. There are other people — Hunter Biden — and they could be charged as well.”

“But someone has to be charged, you have to take it to court, and then you have to decide. I think in Hunter Biden’s case, he actually did physically sign it, so he must have perhaps recognized who Hunter Biden was,” he continued. “And he also had to recognize the importance of signing it. With Fauci, I’m not sure if he knows Anthony Fauci’s name or is aware of the circumstances. He is somewhat distant from contemporary events and activities … But the only way to figure this out is to take it to court.”

Paul criminally referred Fauci to the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2023, alleging that uncovered emails from 2020 showed Fauci lied to Congress in 2021. One email showed Fauci and other experts expressing concern that COVID-19 had been mutated by scientists.

Paul renewed the referral on July 14 after details emerged about Fauci receiving the pardon by an autopen used by his staff. He asserted there was not apparent evidence that Biden directly ordered the pardon.

Kirk asked Paul to explain what Fauci allegedly lied about.

“Anthony Fauci testified before Congress in a very vigorous and heated and animated way that the NIH [National Institutes of Health] never funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan. Well, this is directly contradicted by the actual people who were involved in the funding,” Paul said. “EcoHealth Alliance was the firm that the NIH funded, that then secondarily funded the research in Wuhan. When EcoHealth’s funding was stopped for a while, they then sent a letter back to the NIH when it started up again, and they said, ‘Thank you for restarting our gain-of-function research funds.’”

“That’s one evidence. But another bit of evidence comes from NIH interim director [Lawrence] Tabak, who, when asked whether this was gain-of-function research, said, ‘Of course it was gain-of-function.’ So I do believe he lied. I think he lied repeatedly,” he added. “And I think he was doing it to cover up any connection and that he would be responsible, because he had the bad judgment to fund this risky research in Wuhan that I believe ultimately became the pandemic.”