Fauci's great escape: Explosive Wuhan claim stalks Covid czar... but he still walks free

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

More than 200 days into the Trump administration, Republicans - who control all levers of the federal government - have yet to bring a single charge against Anthony Fauci.
The beleaguered 84-year-old doctor gained notoriety as chief medical adviser to Donald Trump and Joe Biden as he was tapped to lead the federal response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Fauci remains in the GOP 's crosshairs with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul 's push for a criminal referral and Tulsi Gabbard 's hunt for new documents. But the prospects for a criminal prosecution that Trump supporters have demanded appear increasingly dim.
Paul, Fauci's most vocal and consistent tormenter, has for months laid out his intentions to yet again haul Fauci before Congress to testify on his role in gain-of-function research. He's also championed a criminal referral to the Department of Justice for Fauci for perjury.
But there haven't been any Fauci hearings and the Justice Department has sat on its hands.
The DOJ did not respond to the Daily Mail's request for comment on whether it was reviewing Paul's referral. Paul's office did not respond to the Daily Mail's request for comment on his referral for a criminal investigation.
Additionally, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in May that she is investigating the National Institutes of Health's approval for issuing grants that included funding gain-of-function research in China 's Wuhan lab.
More than three months after her interview aired, Gabbard's office has not published anything damning about Fauci or released any documents.
An official with ODNI however, told the Daily Mail that Gabbard's team has provided Congress with documents related to origins of COVID-19 that were withheld during the Biden administration.
An official with ODNI however, told the Daily Mail that Gabbard's team has provided Congress with documents related to origins of COVID-19 that were withheld during the Biden administration.
Gabbard and her team have been interviewing whistleblowers and evaluating documents for declassification to the American public, with a source underscoring the gravity of the national security threat to prevent a future pandemic.
If what Gabbard is looking into is true, she claims it would prove that Fauci 'helped fund the pandemic,' an explosive claim that's yet to be proven.
As the face of the White House COVID-19 response team, Fauci has for years faced an onslaught of attacks over his handling of the health emergency.
But most potentially damning are the claims from Paul and other Republican lawmakers that Fauci lied to Congress while under oath regarding U.S. funding of the problematic Chinese gain-of-function research.
Despite these claims, Republicans haven't been able to make Fauci pay a price.
Back in 2021, Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies Director John Malcolm noted that it's hard to prove someone has lied before Congress because malice is key to the charge.
'It's not enough to prove someone was wrong or even egregiously wrong,' Malcolm, told the Daily Signal. 'You have to prove they knew they were wrong and lied about it.'
In May 2021, Fauci told Congress that the NIH ' has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. '
But since then, reports and documents have emerged showing that the U.S. did issue grants that directly went towards research at the Wuhan lab on making a coronavirus more dangerous to humans.
Gain-of-function research helps scientists and the medical community better understand pathogens and allows them to study viruses behavior and reaction to treatments.
Gabbard told Megyn Kelly in May that she is working with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and new NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya to look at what 'dangerous' gain-of-function research was actually funded by the U.S.
She specifically wanted to figure out whether NIH funding for Ecohealth's partnership with the Wuhan lab was for the experiment that led to the development and lab leak of the COVID-19 virus.
'We look forward to being able to share that, hopefully very soon,' Gabbard said when asked if she uncovered concrete evidence yet.
It's been three months since her promise of 'very soon.'
Right-wing media personalities haven't let go of the notion that Fauci might be at the heart of the coronavirus' origins.
'If that's true – if it was Peter Daszak's research with the Wuhan so-called bat lady that caused this pandemic, then we did fund it – then Anthony Fauci helped fund the pandemic he was in charge of fighting,' Kelly said in an interview with Gabbard on her SiriusXM show.
'The thing that he denied over and over and over to Senator Rand Paul's questioning under oath,' the DNI replied.
But it remains legally questionable if Fauci could be charged with a crime since he is protected under a presidential pardon.
covered any potential offenses Fauci may have committed from January 1, 2014 through January 20, 2025.
The revelation that Biden's staff allegedly employed an autopen in lieu of the former president's personal signature has cast some doubts on the pardon's legal validity.