Rand Paul demands Fauci say sorry before gain-of-function hearing

Dr. Anthony Fauci served as the chief explainer of COVID-19 under two different administrations, guiding policies and messaging regarding the virus that has shaken the country and the world for years.

But in all his statements to the media, profiles, interviews and congressional hearings, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., maintained what Fauci never said: that he was sorry.

“So, I’d like to hear you apologize,” Paul said. “Can he say he’s sorry about the funding? The research was dangerous research in China? Almost everyone agrees on that.”

EXCLUSIVE: COMER SAYS BIDEN PARDON WON’T PROTECT FAUCI IF HE LIES TO CONGRESS

“Now he’s saying, ‘Oh, it didn’t fit this description or that description, it was dangerous research,'” he continued. “This was an error of judgment. A profound error of judgement.”

Paul and Fauci will face off Wednesday morning in a years-long clash before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the panel Paul leads.

Ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, Paul unveiled Fauci’s more than 1,000 pages of his diary and offered his own colorful commentary online about Fauci’s motivations before and during the pandemic.

WATCH: RAND PAUL SAYS FAUCI LOBBYED FOR $1 MILLION REWARD WHILE LEADING COVID RESPONSE

The lawmaker had his sights set on Fauci since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, accusing him of funding research that led to the emergence of the virus in China.

Although Fauci has been out of the public spotlight since 2022, when he left his post as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the two will finally get the chance to compromise and resolve the conflict.

“I really think he could have done better at the hearing if he had come forward and apologized for funding this research,” Paul said. “No one has ever heard an apology from him. All they’ve heard is the idea that he never did anything wrong and there was nothing wrong with that.”

WHILE PAMUK DEMANDED THE INVESTIGATION OF CHINESE FUNDS, HARVARD LEADED THE COUNTRY IN FOREIGN CASH TRANSPORTATION

You. Rand Paul, R-Ky., chairs the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Paul said the president’s former chief medical adviser deserved to be in prison for his alleged role in funding gain-of-function research and warned that former President Joe Biden’s pardon would not stand.

Specifically, Fauci’s former chief advisor at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. David Morens was indicted by the Justice Department earlier this year on charges of evading public records laws, concealing communications regarding the origins of COVID-19 and conspiring to destroy federal records.

Gain-of-function research, or work that increases the infectivity or lethality of a virus, and Fauci’s alleged role in funding such research through his position at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China have been a focus for years in Paul’s crusade against the former COVID-19 czar.

And he argued that the issue of investigating the spread of a virus or its potential to kill predates the pandemic.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD FOX NEWS APPLICATION

Paul claimed that research conducted by Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier in 2010 produced a version of H5N1, commonly known as bird flu, that could be transmitted “airborne between mammals.”

“And half the scientific community said, ‘Oh my God, this could be the end of the world. This is what we’re doing,'” Paul said.

“And Fauci was on the other side, and he said in a Washington Post op-ed at the time that even if an outbreak occurred because a scientist was bitten or infected in some way, the information was worth the risk,” he continued. “This needs to be discussed by the country. Is the knowledge of creating viruses that can kill the world worth the risks? I don’t think so.”