Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) officially sent a criminal referral to the U.S. Department of Justice late last week over Dr. Anthony Fauci allegedly lying to Congress.
Paul <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rand-paul-im-making-criminal-referral-to-doj-for-anthony-fauci-because-he-has-lied-to-congress">told</a> Fox News last week that he was &#8220;sending a letter to the Department of Justice asking for a criminal referral because he has lied to Congress.&#8221;
Paul later sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, alleging that Fauci had potentially violated 18 U.S. Code § 1001, which states &#8220;whoever &#8216;makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation&#8217; as part of &#8216;any investigation or review, conducted pursuant to the authority of any committee, subcommittee, commission or office of the Congress, consistent with applicable rules of the House or Senate&#8217; is subject to criminal fines and imprisonment of up to five years.&#8221;
The <a href="https://twitter.com/JerryDunleavy/status/1419036445805776898">letter</a> stated:
<blockquote>I write to urge the United States Department of Justice to open an investigation into testimony made to the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions by Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), on May 11, 2021.
As one of the institutes that compose the National Institutes of Health (NIH), NIAID funds many scientific projects both in the U.S. and elsewhere. In response to questioning by me, Dr. Fauci testified that &#8220;the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.&#8221;
In May 2016, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity released a report entitled Recommendations for the Evaluation and Oversight of Proposed Gain-of-Function Research, which stated, &#8220;[t]he term &#8216;gain-of-function&#8217; is generally used to refer to changes resulting in the acquisition of new, or an enhancement of existing, biological phenotypes.&#8221;
In a paper entitled &#8216;Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origins of SARS coronaviruses,&#8217; Dr. Zheng-Li Shi describes research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and funded under NIAID Award R01AI110964 in which the spike genes from two uncharacterized bat SARS-related coronavirus strain, Rs4231 and Rs7327, were combined with the genomic backbone of another SARS-related coronavirus to create novel chimeric SARS-related viruses that showed cytopathic effects in in primate epithelial cells and replication in human epithelial cells. These experiments combined genetic information from different SARS-related coronaviruses and combined them to create novel, artificial viruses able to infect human cells. This research, conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and funded under NIAID Award R01AI110964, fits the definition of gain-of-function research.
Under 18 U.S. Code § 1001, whoever &#8216;makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation&#8217; as part of &#8216;any investigation or review, conducted pursuant to the authority of any committee, subcommittee, commission or office of the Congress, consistent with applicable rules of the House or Senate&#8217; is subject to criminal fines and imprisonment of up to five years. I ask that you investigate whether Dr. Fauci&#8217;s statements to Congress on May 11, 2021 violated that statute or any other.
I look forward to your timely response. </blockquote>
FactCheck.org, which has covered the funding controversy in the past, previously reported that the answer to whether NIH funding was directed to the Wuhan lab and used to further gain-of-function research “depends on whom you ask and their definition of gain-of-function.” (Read the full report <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2021/05/the-wuhan-lab-and-the-gain-of-function-disagreement/">here</a>.) The funding claim revolves around a six-figure grant that NIH provided to a group called EcoHealth Alliance, which directed money toward a project at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Josh Rogin, a columnist at The Washington Post, summarized the exchange between Fauci and Paul by writing on Twitter: “Hey guys, @RandPaul was right and Fauci was wrong. The NIH was funding gain of function research in Wuhan but NIH pretended it didn’t meet their ‘gain of function’ definition to avoid their own oversight mechanism. SorryNotSorry if that doesn’t fit your favorite narrative.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Hey guys, <a href="https://twitter.com/RandPaul?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RandPaul</a> was right and Fauci was wrong. The NIH was funding gain of function research in Wuhan but NIH pretended it didn&#39;t meet their &quot;gain of function&quot; definition to avoid their own oversight mechanism. SorryNotSorry if that doesn&#39;t fit your favorite narrative.
&mdash; Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) <a href="https://twitter.com/joshrogin/status/1417609272427483145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 20, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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US-POLITICS-HEALTH-VIRUS-HEARING

Sen. Rand Paul Sends Criminal Referral For Fauci To Department Of Justice

Anthony Fauci

Department of Justice

Rand Paul

Last week, Senator Rand Paul and Dr. Anthony Fauci went viral after they argued during a Senate hearing over the definition of “gain of function” research. Specifically, they butted heads over whether the U.S. funded the type of research potentially connected with the Wuhan lab at the center of the contentious “lab leak” theory of COVID-19&#8217;s origins.
“Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly, and I want to say that officially. You do not know what you are talking about!” said Dr. Fauci, after Sen. Paul referenced a paper by a Wuhan lab researcher which discussed what was, in the senator’s opinion, an example of “gain of function” research.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
WATCH: Complete exchange between Dr. Anthony Fauci and Senator <a href="https://twitter.com/RandPaul?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RandPaul</a>.
Dr. Fauci: &quot;Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly, and I want to say that officially. You do not know what you are talking about.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/2wFbAxicI2">pic.twitter.com/2wFbAxicI2</a>
&mdash; CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1417502417713864711?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 20, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
While officials like Fauci attempt to wiggle away from any semblance of responsibility by hiding behind deliberately fluid definitions, however, we are missing the most important point of all.
The question is not “did the U.S. fund ‘gain-of-function’ research in China,&#8221; or &#8220;did the U.S. fund research which resulted in the COVID-19 outbreak?&#8221; 
Instead, the question is “why on earth are we sending a single penny to our greatest enemy on the world stage?”
As I have said on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/haworth-china-is-our-generations-nazi-germany">multiple occasions</a>, China — under the iron-fist of the Chinese Communist Party — is today’s Nazi Germany. While American leaders wring their hands over the threat of Russia or Iran or North Korea, they are ignoring the growth of the single greatest threat to Western liberty on the planet.
Whether it be the CCP’s open disdain for human rights, their military aggression against neighboring states, or the attempt to place the world economy in a stranglehold, China’s status as the United States’ greatest adversary — both economically, militarily, and ethically — is unquestionable.
Then why are we sending them money?
For example, the NIH gave almost <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/anthony-fauci-rand-paul-wuhan-lab-leak-11627240720">$600,000</a> (through a nonprofit and various grant systems) to the Wuhan Institute of Virology over several years to study bat coronaviruses.
Why?
The claim that Chinese institutions are in any way independent of the Chinese Communist Party is either naive or deeply moronic. In the world&#8217;s foremost dictatorship, we can safely assume any and all companies, organizations, and institutions exist only with the CCP&#8217;s blessing.
This means that one dollar sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology is, effectively, one dollar sent to the Chinese government, with not much more than Fauci&#8217;s assumption of academic honesty protecting our taxpayer funds from anti-American misappropriation.
People would understandably scoff at the idea of sending taxpayer dollars to the Nazi Party during World War II. Then why do we accept the idea that China should receive a single American dollar today?
The argument over the NIH and its involvement with COVID-19 pales in comparison to the importance of knowing who our friends are on the world stage, and who our enemies are.
China is an enemy, and it’s time we started treating them as such. Ending funding for their &#8220;research&#8221; — regardless of whether or not it resulted in a worldwide pandemic — seems like an obvious place to start.
Ian Haworth is an Editor and Writer for The Daily Wire. Follow him on Twitter at<a href="https://twitter.com/ighaworth"> @ighaworth</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe"> member</a>.

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Sen. Rand Paul Sends Criminal Referral For Fauci To Department Of Justice

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