‘Question the validity of purported pardon’: U.S. senator renews push to probe Fauci

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is renewing his call for the Department of Justice to investigation Anthony Fauci, who was Joe Biden’s key COVID adviser during the China virus pandemic, and has been accused of orchestrating funding for the Wuhan lab from which the deadly threat likely emerged, as well as promoting COVID shots that have proven injurious to many while suppressing other existing treatments.

The Washington Examiner reported Paul sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi asking for the DOJ’s review “for possible criminal prosecution regarding Fauci’s congressional testimony in May 2021 about gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

Fauci used to be the chief of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the White House Coronavirus Task Force when the pandemic erupted, later being a medical adviser to Biden.

“In July 2023, I referred Dr. Anthony Fauci to the Department of Justice for lying under oath to Congress. His own emails directly contradicted his sworn testimony,” Paul explained in a statement. “The New York Times reports Fauci was quietly pardoned by an autopen, operated by Biden’s staff. If the President didn’t authorize this pardon personally, then the Department has a duty to investigate and prosecute as it would any ordinary citizen. Fauci has been sainted by the extremist Left, but it doesn’t erase his lying before Congress.”

Fauci was, in fact, granted a preemptive pardon by the Biden White House, but there are open disputes as to whether those were personally authorized by him, or whether his staff and advisers simply used the autopen technology to imprint Biden’s signature on pardons they prepared.

“I write to renew my previous requests for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to open an investigation into former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Anthony Fauci’s testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on May 11, 2021,” Paul wrote.

“This most recent request stems from new allegations that call into question the validity of Dr. Fauci’s purported pardon.”

Paul explained, “New information has revealed that these pardons were executed via autopen, with no documented confirmation that the President personally reviewed or approved each individual grant of clemency. According to reports, White House staff authorized the use of the autopen to issue the clemency documents. This raises serious constitutional and legal concerns about the legitimacy of Dr. Fauci’s pardon.”

BREAKING: Rand Paul will be re-issuing his CRIMINAL REFERRAL to the DOJ for Anthony Fauci, after his “pardon” was confirmed to be issued by a late-night autopen

Fauci lied REPEATEDLY in front of Congress and shaking while doing so.

He’s guilty of perjury. LOCK HIM UP. pic.twitter.com/dmNSLnEClt

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) July 14, 2025

Today I will reissue my criminal referral of Anthony Fauci to Trump DOJ! https://t.co/trIhJHAOlx

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 14, 2025

It was a report at Real Clear Wire that noted the original complaints about Fauci were that he lied to Congress about the lab, its funding and on other issues.

That report also suggested that despite the “pardon” from the White House, he still could face legal jeopardy.

Former Senate investigator Jason Foster, who now runs the whistleblower nonprofit Empower Oversight, says Congress can, in fact, demand answers, even about whether he lied before.

“They can ask him if he lied before, replough old ground,” Foster said. “And if he lies about any prior lie, he can be prosecuted for that or held in contempt.”

Andrew Noymer, associate professor of population health and disease prevention at the University of California, Irvine, said such hearings are necessary for scientific and historical reasons. “I’m hopeful that he will now come clean about everything he knows about the origins of the virus. For the sake of public trust in science – explaining what killed 20 million people – that a complete account is much more important than speculation about what criminal penalties he may have avoided.”

Another expert, on the Trump transition team, said, “These pardons will not stop Department of Justice investigations. We expected this and look at it as a predicate to get truth from people who can no longer use the Fifth Amendment. Now we can bring every one of them in front of a grand jury.”

Fauci, during the pandemic, at one point arrogantly insisted he is “science.”

He was known for flip-flopping his positions on COVID during the pandemic.

The report noted, “Fauci’s habit of bending the truth, as some see it, was notably on display at a July 2021 Senate hearing when Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican, bore into the funding Fauci approved for gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. While Fauci attempted to downplay his financial involvement with the Chinese government lab, reports were already percolating. In April 2020, Newsweek reported that Fauci had approved a grant for risky ‘gain of function’ virus research at the Wuhan lab. The Washington Post editorial board in March 2021 then called for an independent investigation into EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit funded by the Fauci-run National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. With this grant, EcoHealth subcontracted research to the Chinese, the Post noted, to do experiments involving ‘modifying viral genomes to give them new properties, including the ability to infect lung cells of laboratory mice that had been genetically modified to respond as human respiratory cells would.’”

EcoHealth Alliance later was barred from getting any federal funds.