Fresh from vowing to investigate chief White House medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci for his role in the Covid-19 pandemic, Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) has demanded that President Joe Biden’s administration preserve documents and messages that could become evidence in the potential probe.
Paul, who has sparred with Fauci in Senate hearings over government funding of potentially dangerous virus research, sent a letter to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Tuesday, calling for the Covid-19 czar’s documents and communications to be saved. The demand came one day after Fauci announced that, effective in December, he would step down as Biden’s chief medical advisor and as director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
“Fauci’s resignation will not prevent a full-throated investigation into the origins of the pandemic,” Paul said after the doctor’s announcement on Monday. That will include testimony under oath concerning discussions about the possible leak of Covid-19 from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, he said. The senator previously accused Fauci of directing public funding to gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab and lying about it under oath in congressional testimony.