Samuel Case, FISM News
Last week there was a heated exchange between Dr. Anthony Fauci and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), where the two accused one another of lying about the nature of U.S. funding at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Following the argument, Senator Paul took to Fox News where he told host Sean Hannity, “I will be sending a letter to the Department of Justice asking for a criminal referral because he has lied to Congress.” The Senator has since followed through with his threat.
The referral letter obtained by the Washington Examiner, written to Attorney General Merrick Garland read, “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, on May 11, 2021.”
The Examiner reports that in the letter, Paul addresses the same U.S. funded research he brought up in his exchange with Dr. Fauci, which seems to suggest gain-of-function research, which Fauci denied before Congress.
Paul told Garland that “these experiments combined genetic information from different SARS-related coronaviruses and combined them to create novel, artificial viruses able to infect human cells.” Paul added, “this research, conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and funded under NIAID Award R01AI110964, fits the definition of gain-of-function research.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services defines gain-of-function research as:
Research that improves the ability of a pathogen to cause disease, help define the fundamental nature of human-pathogen interactions, thereby enabling assessment of the pandemic potential of emerging infectious agents, informing public health and preparedness efforts, and furthering medical countermeasure development.