(Photo : MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci looks on during the daily briefing on the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, in the Brady Briefing Room at the White House on April 1, 2020, in Washington, DC.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci sneered at the prospect of being investigated by Republicans if the party retakes control of Congress in the crucial midterm elections, defending his record and urging GOP legislators to take their best shot.
The 81-year-old career bureaucrat who has led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984 and was recently infected with COVID-19 has been laying low but has recently resurfaced with a string of media appearances as the fear machine over Monkeypox and the latest variant is revving up.
Fauci Dares Republicans To Investigate Him
He appeared on CNN's "New Day" on Tuesday and chatted with anchor John Berman. The primary topic was whether a public health emergency declaration over Monkeypox - which has been largely spread through homosexual male group sex - is in the works, but the good doctor was also asked about the prospect of being forced to testify before GOP-led committees if the Democrats lose in November, as most analysts predict.
While Fauci remained defiant about his performance throughout the horrific years of the COVID-19 issue, several attempted to clear the air, like Tom Elliott of multimedia marketplace Grabien, who tweeted a recording of the program.
Elliott rattled off a laundry list of things President Joe Biden's top medical adviser could be held accountable for, including accidentally creating and then covering up COVID-19, engineering the destruction of civil rights through lockdowns and mandates, lying to Congress, weaponizing the government to suppress dissent, impairing the development of a generation of children, spewing contradictory advice at every stage of the pandemic, and profiting from his position, according to BPR.
His reaction comes after Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul vowed an inquiry. If Republicans obtain a majority, Paul, a former ophthalmologist, will be head of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. The current ranking member, Republican Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, is retiring from the Senate.
Paul and Fauci are no strangers to squabbles, having sparred publicly over the previous three years of the coronavirus outbreak. Paul has specifically questioned Fauci about the virus's origins, and the gain-of-function study at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, which the senator alleges is how COVID-19 came to be.
The Kentucky legislator has accused Fauci of being involved in the virus's creation since the National Institutes of Health funded a group doing research at the Wuhan facility. Fauci has frequently denied these allegations, as per Daily Mail.
Fauci has stated that he maintains an open mind on claims that the coronavirus may have spilled from a Chinese facility. Despite his long-held belief that the virus originated in nature, he told Fox News' Brett Baier on Friday that he has not discarded the lab leak scenario altogether.
Baier questioned Fauci about his statements two years ago when he dismissed the lab leak scenario as a shiny item that will go away after receiving a series of letters questioning if the virus may have been genetically produced at the Institute of Virology in Wuhan. The Republican Party revealed the emails a year later, New York Post reported.
Related Article: Will Monkeypox be the Next COVID-19? Lawmakers Demand Biden Administration Reveal Its Plan on How To Handle New Outbreak
