Tipsheet

Rand Paul Rips Fauci for Saying He Is a 'Representative of Science'

Republican Senator and Dr. Rand Paul is tearing into Dr. Anthony Fauci after the bureaucrat claimed he "represents the science" during a Sunday interview with "Face the Nation." 

Paul has been battling Fauci since the early days of the pandemic in 2020. First, Paul took Fauci on over schools and was correct when he said they shouldn't remain closed. 

Then, Paul took Fauci on over gain-of-function research – which is used to juice up dangerous viruses – being conducted in labs under Fauci's watch. 

While Fauci denied gain-of-function experiments ever took place, his own agency released a letter in October admitting the dangerous research did in fact happen at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. 

In July, Paul referred Fauci for criminal prosecution

"Without question the evidence we presented in Committee yesterday shows that the NIH was funding research in Wuhan. We showed the exact numerical series of numbers that goes with the grant number, so yes they were funding the Wuhan lab," Paul wrote in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland. "The second question is whether or not the research was gain-of-function. The NIH actually defines gain-of-function, and I read that definition to him [Fauci] but he didn't listen, the definition is that any kind of animal virus that occurs in nature that affects animals only or infects animals only if you recombine it or mutate it or adapt in a lab with other viruses so it has characteristics that change it to an animal only virus to being a virus that can now infect humans, that you've gained in function...you've made it more dangerous. Without question this is what happened in the Wuhan lab."