Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Thursday said he referred Dr. Anthony Fauci to the Justice Department for contempt.

During an appearance on Fox News, he railed against the former infectious disease official over his role in promoting government overreach during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The question is this: should we be paying for the taxpayer to take animal viruses and purposely mutate them to become human viruses? He knew it was going on,” Paul said. “In January of 2020, his private notes say, ‘We're suspicious of the Chinese because we know they do gain-of-function research.’ But if he was suspicious, why did he fund them? It's a terrible judgment to fund a group of people that you now are saying are doing dangerous research that could have led to this pandemic.”

When asked about the expected contempt vote next week, Paul said he didn’t think “there is an exact thing that has to happen” and that “In the past, often contempt messages go from committee to the floor, but I don’t think there’s any rule that says it has to.”

I think it's less likely to pass on the floor. I think we can pass it out of committee. And from there, I plan on sending it directly with a legal brief supporting the arguments to the Department of Justice. This is similar to in the past. I've sent these individually. I've sent a criminal referral on Anthony Fauci twice under Biden and twice under Trump. Now I'll be sending the committee's product. That's probably what happens. I can't guarantee that we're going to win the vote, but I'm pretty certain we can win the vote next week.

Several other Republican lawmakers are pushing to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress after he refused to answer questions during a Senate hearing on Wednesday. The Washington Post reported that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, ended the nearly three-hour session by announcing a committee vote next week on whether to find Fauci in contempt.

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Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right more than 100 times and answered none of the questions posed to him. During Wednesday’s hearing, Paul told Fauci, “It’s against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress. There will be repercussions to your refusal to testify today.”

Other Republicans joined the call to hold Fauci accountable. Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) told Fauci, “You forced people to watch their loved ones die alone over the phone. It’s disgusting.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) later said Fauci “should be held in contempt, he should be prosecuted for perjury, and he should go to jail.” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said he looks forward to voting yes on the contempt measure.