Republican attorneys general are asking Congress for information necessary to potentially investigate former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci over his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson (R) is leading a group of GOP statewide prosecutors asking congressional Republican leadership for information from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic’s investigation that could lead to state-level investigations and prosecutions, National Review has learned.
“As state Attorneys General, we possess the authority to address violations of state law or breaches of public trust. We are fully committed to investigating any malfeasance that may have occurred to the fullest extent of our authority and are prepared to collaborate with you in further efforts,” the letter reads.
The letter, addressed to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), is signed by more than a dozen red state attorneys general. It is also being sent to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R., Ky.), Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.), Senator Bill Cassidy (R., La.), and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the National Institutes of Health.
“Our current capabilities may be somewhat limited, and thus, your cooperation would be invaluable. You are uniquely positioned to assist us by providing us with information that could outline potential courses of action under state law, should they exist. If possible, please furnish us with the necessary details so that we may make informed decisions aimed at holding malign actors accountable,” the letter concludes.
The letter does not cite any specific state laws the attorneys general believe Fauci may have broken. Asked whether they have any specific violations in mind that would prompt them to investigate Fauci, Wilson’s office could not offer any specifics.
Former President Joe Biden pardoned Fauci during the final hours of his term to prevent the Trump administration from prosecuting him for perjury. Fauci has insisted he did nothing wrong but thanked Biden for the pardon.
Biden’s pardon protects Fauci from federal prosecution but does not prevent state law enforcement officers from waging prosecutions against him.
Senator Paul has long contended that Fauci committed perjury multiple times when he claimed that the NIH did not fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, to study coronaviruses with enhanced transmissibility. Lying to Congress is a federal offense, so it would lie outside the jurisdiction of the state attorneys general who signed the letter.
The Covid-19 subcommittee was formed last Congress and spent two years looking into the origins of the pandemic and how government officials handled it. The panel’s work ended in December with a lengthy final report on its findings, concluding that Covid-19 most likely came from a lab and the National Institutes of Health failed to properly oversee grants that funded risky bat coronavirus research in Wuhan.
Dr. Fauci was implicated in the report for orchestrating a paper at the start of the pandemic to discredit the lab leak theory of Covid-19’s origin. The stringent lockdowns, social distancing guidelines, and mask mandates Fauci championed lacked scientific basis and failed to control the spread of the virus. Pandemic-era control measures generated significant learning loss for schoolchildren and deeply corrosive physical and mental health effects for American society as a whole.
Fauci later testified to the congressional panel that the lab leak was not a conspiracy theory and admitted that the six-feet social distancing guidelines were not rooted in scientific evidence. He also took pains to distance himself from the implementation of school closures while defending their usage at the start of the pandemic.
President Trump withdrew Fauci’s taxpayer-funded security detail in the first week of his term. Fauci worked in the federal government for decades as a largely obscure senior official before rising to prominence as the public face of the government’s response to Covid-19.
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to note that NR reached out to Wilson’s office for further details on which laws the attorney general believes Fauci may have violated.