Fauci statute of limitations expires Monday as Paul pushes DOJ indictment

The statute of limitations on criminal referral of Dr. Anthony Fauci for lying to Congress about gain-of-function research expires Monday, but Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., vows to keep the pressure on “the COVID cover-up” with a Senate hearing this week.

“David Morens, Dr. Fauci’s top advisor, has been indicted, but Fauci himself is still free,” Paul, who has long pressed Fauci in heated exchanges during congressional hearings, wrote this week on

“The DOJ has 5 days to charge Fauci before the statute of limitations expires. Time is running out. Justice cannot wait.”

Biden’s pardon and the expiration of Fauci’s statute of limitations on Monday protect the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Biden’s chief medical adviser, but Morens was indicted late last month for “deliberately withholding information and falsifying records in an effort to suppress alternative theories regarding the origins of COVID-19.”

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Senator Rand Paul questions Dr. Anthony Fauci during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on the federal response to monkeypox on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, September 14, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

“For years, I warned that Fauci and his inner circle buried the truth about Wuhan,” Paul wrote Wednesday on X. “Now his closest advisor has been indicted.

“Fauci lied to Congress under oath. The statute of limitations expires in 5 days. Will the DOJ finally charge Fauci?”

The Trump Justice Department, led by former Attorney General Pam Bondi or Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, has made no public statements regarding the filing of charges.

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“While we may all have issues with Congress, that is no longer in our hands,” Paul wrote Thursday on X. “I DID the work, investigated, and sent several CRIMINAL referrals to the DOJ.

“Whether or not he is indicted now is not up to Congress. It is up to the DoJ, and no one else.”

“He lied to Congress about NIH funding dangerous gain-of-function research in Wuhan and engaged in the worst cover-up in modern medical history,” Paul added in another X article. “The American people want Fauci behind bars.”

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Dr. Anthony Fauci makes an opening statement during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on the federal response to COVID-19 and new variants, January 11, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Senator Rand Paul also speaks at the hearing titled “Addressing New Variants: A Federal Perspective on the COVID-19 Response.” (Greg Nash/AFP/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump has publicly dismissed Biden’s automatic pardons as having no force or “legal effect,” but there is no precedent for a new president rescinding a former president’s pardons, as they could render presidential pardon authority ultimately powerless against a new administration’s agenda.

“Anyone who receives ‘pardons,’ ‘commutations,’ or any other legal document so executed, should be informed that said document has been fully and completely terminated and has no legal effect,” Trump wrote in December on Truth Social.

Just two days after Fauci’s time expired, Paul chairs a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday with a whistleblower for “COVID cover-up.”

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“Next week I will be holding a hearing with a whistleblower who will testify publicly about the COVID cover-up,” Paul teased in an X post. “Mark your calendars: Wednesday, May 13 at 10 a.m.

“The truth is coming.”

Paul renewed a criminal referral to the DOJ last July to investigate whether Fauci’s May 2021 statements violated the federal False Claims Act. In the referral, Paul highlighted Fauci’s testimony that “the NIH has never funded and does not currently fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

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Paul’s reference also noted that Fauci later said he had “never lied to Congress” and that he had “not retracted that statement” after Paul warned him about the criminal implications of lying to Congress.

The referral cites a February 2020 email released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, in which Fauci wrote that “Wuhan University scientists are known to have worked on gain-of-function experiments” involving bat viruses and human infection.

Paul argued that the email contradicted Fauci’s sworn testimony.

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Paul also cited research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) that he said was funded under an NIAID grant and involved combining spike genes from bat SARS-related coronaviruses with another coronavirus backbone to create chimeric viruses capable of infecting human cells.

“This research, conducted at WIV and funded by NIAID award R01AI110964, fits the definition of gain-of-function research,” the reference states.

The criminal referral further cites a 2023 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that WIV and Wuhan University received funding from the NIH. According to Paul’s reference, the GAO said the NIH funded a project that included “genetic experiments to combine natural bat coronaviruses with SARS and MERS viruses, resulting in hybridized coronavirus strains.”

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Anyone who makes a materially false statement during a congressional investigation or review may be subject to fines and up to five years in prison.

Paul’s July firing also challenged the legal effect of a preemptive pardon Fauci received from Biden’s autoopen.

“New information has revealed that these pardons were executed via automatic opening, without any documented confirmation that the President personally reviewed or approved each pardon grant,” Paul wrote. “Reportedly, White House staff authorized the use of the autopen to issue the pardon documents.

“This raises serious constitutional and legal concerns about the legitimacy of Dr. Fauci’s pardon.”

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Fauci has repeatedly denied lying to Congress, including forcefully to Paul himself during several congressional hearings.

“Dr. Fauci, knowing that lying to Congress is a crime, would you like to retract your May 11 statement. [2021]when you told the NIH you never funded gain-of-function research and move on?” Paul asked during a Senate hearing in July 2021.

“Senator Paul, I have never lied to Congress and I am not retracting that statement,” Fauci replied.

“Let me finish!” » Fauci added, when Paul tried to intervene. “Senator Paul, you don’t know what you’re talking about, frankly. And I want to put it on the record, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

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The nature of the alleged lie revolves around the definition and denial of gain-of-function research around COVID-19.

“You’re skirting around all of this because you’re trying to obscure responsibility for the four million people around them dying from a pandemic,” Paul said in the famous exchange, adding, “you’re obviously obscuring the truth.”

Fauci responded: “I’m not covering up the truth – you are.”

“You are insinuating that what we did is responsible for the deaths of individuals,” he added. “I’m totally unhappy about this.”

Paul replied, “It could have been.”

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“If anyone is lying here, senator, it’s you,” Fauci said, pointing at Paul.

Sitting members of Congress enjoy immunity under the Constitution’s speech and debate clause, while most of those who do are under congressional investigation and subject to testimony under oath, which Fauci did.