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Sen.
Rand
Paul,
R-Ky.,
clashed
with Dr.
Anthony
Fauci
over
claims
about
funding
the
National
Institutes
of
Health
gain of
function
research
at a
Wuhan
lab
during a
Senate
hearing
on the
Covid-19
pandemic.
Dr.
Fauci
refuted
claims
made and
told the
senator
"you do
not know
what you
are
talking
about."
(NBC
Screenshot) |
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In
latest
clash
over
Wuhan
lab,
Fauci
tells
Sen.
Rand
Paul:
‘You do
not know
what
you’re
talking
about’ |
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By
Reis
Thebault
washingtonpost.com
WASHINGTON
- It’s a
tone not
typically
taken in
the
august
chambers
of the
U.S.
Senate —
except
when
Anthony
S. Fauci
and Sen.
Rand
Paul
square
off.
The two
men —
the
country’s
top
infectious-diseases
doctor
and the
junior
Republican
senator
from
Kentucky
— have a
history
of
heated
exchanges
and
escalating
accusations,
with
Paul
often
using
the
congressional
hearings
to
inveigh
against
Fauci
over his
handling
of the
coronavirus
pandemic
and
Fauci
responding
with an
increasingly
vigorous
defense.
On
Tuesday,
they
traded
their
most
barbed
public
remarks
yet,
accusing
each
other of
lying
during a
fierce
debate
over
U.S.
funding
for a
lab in
Wuhan,
China.
“Senator
Paul,
you do
not know
what
you’re
talking
about,
quite
frankly,
and I
want to
say that
officially,”
Fauci,
director
of the
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases,
said at
one
point.
“You do
not know
what you
are
talking
about.”
The
argument,
which
echoed
an
earlier
dust-up,
centered
on
Paul’s
claim
that the
National
Institutes
of
Health
awarded
a grant
that
partially
funded a
project
that
relied
on
“gain-of-function”
research,
a
controversial
practice
that
involves
enhancing
a virus
in a lab
to try
to
anticipate
future
pandemics.
This
type of
experimentation
has come
under
growing
scrutiny
as U.S.
intelligence
agencies
investigate
the
origins
of the
novel
coronavirus
and the
theory
that it
could
have
accidentally
leaked
from a
lab.
Officials
have
repeatedly
denied
Paul’s
allegations,
and in a
hearing
in May,
Fauci
told the
senator
that the
National
Institutes
of
Health
“has not
ever and
does not
now fund
gain-of-function
research”
at the
Chinese
lab, the
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology.
On
Tuesday,
Paul
suggested
that
Fauci
had
lied:
“Dr.
Fauci,
knowing
that it
is a
crime to
lie to
Congress,
do you
wish to
retract
your
statement
of May
11 where
you
claimed
that the
NIH
never
funded
gain-of-function
research
in
Wuhan?”
Paul
asked.
“Senator
Paul, I
have
never
lied
before
the
Congress,
and I do
not
retract
that
statement,”
Fauci
replied,
adding
that the
research
had been
“judged
by
qualified
staff up
and down
the
chain as
not
being
gain-of-function.”
Paul
then
accused
Fauci of
“dancing
around
this
because
you are
trying
to
obscure
responsibility
for four
million
people
dying
around
the
world
from a
pandemic.”
“I
totally
resent
the lie
that you
are now
propagating,
senator,”
Fauci
shot
back.
The
Washington
Post’s
Fact
Checker
examined
Paul’s
previous
claim
that
Fauci
had
overseen
NIH
funding
of
gain-of-function
research
in Wuhan
and
found it
to be
exaggerated
and
misleading,
awarding
it “Two
Pinocchios.”
On
Tuesday,
Fauci
went
further.
“You are
implying
that
what we
did was
responsible
for the
deaths
of
individuals,”
he said.
“I
totally
resent
that.
And if
anybody’s
lying
here,
senator,
it is
you.”
Fauci
has been
the
target
of
right-wing
opprobrium
since
the
earliest
days of
the
pandemic,
with
conservatives
calling
for him
to be
fired
and also
seeking
a
criminal
investigation
of his
conduct.
Earlier
this
month,
Florida
Gov. Ron
DeSantis’s
political
campaign
printed
shirts
and
beverage-can
insulators
reading
“Don’t
Fauci My
Florida.”
But for
more
than a
year,
Paul has
fashioned
himself
as the
Senate’s
chief
Fauci
skeptic,
and his
attacks
have
grown
more
personal.
In a
hearing
in
March,
Paul
pressed
Fauci on
recommendations
that
people
who have
been
vaccinated
or have
contracted
the
virus
should
wear
masks.
“You’ve
had the
vaccine,
and
you’re
wearing
two
masks,”
Paul
said.
“Is that
just
theater?”
“Here we
go
again,”
Fauci
responded.
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