‘If anyone’s lying here, it’s you’: Fauci turns the tables on Detective Rand Paul | Rand Paul

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Anthony Fauci has a reputation for clear talk, finding out the senator who accused him of lying at his cost on Tuesday.

A congressional hearing on the coronavirus pandemic was sparked when Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, clashed with Rand Paul, the Republican senator from Kentucky and a longtime opponent of masks.

Ball suggested that Fauci lied to Congress in May when he denied that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was funding so-called “gain-of-function” research — the practice of boosting the virus in the lab to study its potential effect in reality. Scientist – at the virology laboratory in Wuhan, China.

“Dr. Fauci, knowing that lying to Congress is a crime, would you like to retract your May 11 statement where you claimed that the National Institutes of Health never funded job research gains in Wuhan?” Senator student.

Fauci, speaking in an instantly recognizable Brooklyn accent, responded forcefully: “Senator Paul, I have never lied to Congress and I am not retracting this statement.”

He also told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that a study Poole cited pointed to an entirely different type of virus than the one responsible for the coronavirus pandemic. “This paper you’re referring to has been judged by qualified personnel up and down the chain as not gaining a job.”

Paul interrupted him, and Fauci insisted “Let me finish,” but Paul continued, pointing his finger as the exchange intensified.

“Senator Paul, you don’t know what you’re talking about, quite frankly,” said Fauci angrily. “And I want to say it solemnly. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The altercation continued as the men interrupted each other repeatedly and the committee chair struggled to retain control. Fauci concluded, “If anyone is lying here, Senator, it is you.”

Critics say Paul is great for the audience on the right, as Fauci becomes a bogeyman, targeted by media commentators and subjected to a “lock him up!” Cheers at Donald Trump rallies.

The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said he deals with such criticism in part by turning to Mario Puzo’s 1969 novel The Godfather with its philosophy: “It’s not personal, it’s purely business.”

Fauci also told the hearing on Tuesday that the coronavirus variant Delta was the cause of more than 80% of new US Covid-19 cases, but that authorized vaccines are still more than 90% effective in preventing hospitalizations and deaths.

Biden in late May called on his aides to investigate the origin of the virus and report back to him within 90 days. The most widespread theory is that the virus originated in animals, possibly bats, and was transmitted to humans.

Minnesota Democratic Senator Tina Smith asked Fauci if there was anything else he’d say “to counter these attacks on your integrity that we’ve all just witnessed.”

He replied, “This is the pattern that Senator Paul has now been doing in multiple hearings on the basis of no truth. He was talking about job acquisition, and this has been evaluated many times by qualified people so that it does not fall within the job acquisition definition. I have not lied in front of Congress. I have never lied. Certainly not before Congress. Case closed.”

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