WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans, and particularly Rand Paul (R-Ky.), have long been critical of the government’s actions during the Covid-19 pandemic — which began during the first Trump administration — and have sought to pin blame on those they believe played some role in the virus’s outbreak and what they describe as a subsequent cover-up of the pandemic’s origins.
On Wednesday, they will again get another chance to explore the past when Anthony Fauci, the nation’s former top infectious disease expert, testifies before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee following a subpoena issued by Paul.
It may also open up an opportunity for Paul to revisit his repeated calls for Fauci to be imprisoned.
Paul and Fauci have long had a contentious relationship, with Paul accusing Fauci of misleading the public about U.S. funding of research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China; Wuhan is where the virus was initially reported to be circulating.
There is no proven link between the research the Wuhan lab was doing on coronaviruses and the start of the pandemic, though Fauci has long said a lab leak cannot be ruled out based on available evidence. The White House updated an official Covid website last year to claim that the virus leaked from a lab funded by the National Institutes of Health, which Trump administration officials also claim Fauci and others hid from the public.
The hearing Wednesday comes after Paul released a trove of pandemic-era diary entries by Fauci, which document his personal thoughts as he wrestled with the crisis and gained celebrity status.
But questions about the former official’s notes may be intended to do more than shed light on the pandemic’s origins or discredit Fauci’s work.
Here are some things STAT will be watching for during Wednesday’s hearing:
Will Fauci answer Paul’s questions — and how cautious will he be?
Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Paul have both suggested that any answers Fauci provides during the hearing could create new opportunities to charge him criminally for lying to Congress, despite his preemptive pardon from former President Biden.
“He could perjure himself now,” Kennedy said on Fox News. “If he lies again, he could be subject to perjury prosecution.” (Fauci has previously denied lying to the public.)
The strategy could guide Republicans’ questions, and Fauci’s responses, or lack thereof.
Fauci is clearly aware of the risk. In a letter declining an invitation to speak with the committee, Fauci’s lawyers wrote:
“You have asked Dr. Fauci to appear for a transcribed interview not for any valid legislative purpose, but as a continuation of your relentless campaign to see Dr. Fauci prosecuted for something — anything — that would vindicate your public pledge that he end up, in your own words, ‘behind bars.’”
Should Fauci’s comments create an opening for a criminal inquiry, it would push the hearing beyond the usual political theater to a consequential development in the push to jail the former official, the latest in a string of Trump administration prosecutions of perceived political enemies.
Will Fauci’s temper trip him up?
Fauci was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for decades, and for much of that time he was esteemed by politicians on both sides of the aisle. But since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, there’s been a dynamic between the senator from Kentucky and the Brooklyn-bred immunologist that would suggest having to endure Paul’s public humiliation might challenge Fauci’s capacity to hold his tongue.
In September 2020, when Covid vaccines were still a few months from being rolled out, Paul argued during a Senate hearing that New York — badly hit early in the pandemic — had achieved herd immunity.
“You are not listening,” Fauci told Paul, telling him he was misconstruing figures cited by Robert Redfield, then the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
During a July 2021 Senate hearing, Paul grilled Fauci about whether the NIAID had funded so-called gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology that led to the creation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
In a heated exchange, Fauci struck back. “Sen. Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly, and I would like to say that officially. You do not know what you are talking about.”
Fauci is known to have a temper, and Paul has shown himself able to push the former NIAID director’s buttons. But retorts in this arena could carry significant consequences.
What will the Trump administration do next?
The administration hasn’t outright said it plans to press charges against Fauci. Still, the Justice Department has pursued charges against one other person in Fauci’s orbit, who didn’t have the same immunity status
David Morens, a former top adviser to Fauci, was indicted on charges of concealing and falsifying information about the origins of Covid. Fauci has denied any knowledge of Morens’ efforts. Kennedy’s role in releasing Fauci’s diary also raises questions about whether the federal health department will continue releasing documents about its Covid response.
Kennedy has repeatedly made claims about corruption and lying in America’s health agencies, without providing evidence to back them up. Will Kennedy find and release anything more?
How have pandemic politics evolved?
Congressional conversations around health care have largely moved on from the pandemic response, as issues ranging from the affordability of care to measles and vaccines take precedence. Wednesday’s hearing will offer an update on how policymakers think about, and remember, one of the greatest public health challenges in voters’ lifetimes.
Republicans’ questions are likely to reaffirm a skepticism toward many public health experts and sweeping government disease responses.
But Democrats’ questioning of Fauci will also provide some indication of how they approach public health policy in a post-Covid world — and whether they’re moved by Republicans’ efforts to make the federal response a political weapon.
Will the public tune in?
Things aren’t faring well for the Republicans in the lead-up to this fall’s midterm elections. President Trump’s polling numbers have tanked, he’s mired the country in a conflict with Iran that is proving challenging to end, and oil prices have soared.
Giving the voting public another issue to focus on might distract from that confluence of woes.
But Covid is firmly in the rearview mirror for many Americans, who may be more concerned about the cost of groceries or health care than an 85-year-old federal government scientist who retired several years ago and whose mere name reminds them of a time they’d like to forget.
Will we learn anything new about the pandemic?
From what Fauci’s diaries have revealed thus far, the answer is likely no. Those documents offer no proof that the pandemic originated from a lab or that Fauci or any other officials worked to cover it up.
Fauci has already given extensive testimony to lawmakers, including in a 2024 closed-door session with a House committee where he sought to clarify that the government did not fund gain-of-function research — a type of research that can enhance the risk a pathogen poses — under a certain regulatory definition.
In June 2024, he appeared before the same House committee again, calling the debate over the virus’s origins “seriously distorted.”