Statute of Limitations Expires on Rand Paul’s Criminal Referral Against Fauci

The statute of limitations on Sen. Rand Paul's criminal referral against Dr. Anthony Fauci for lying to Congress expires Monday. Paul has pressed the Justice Department to indict Fauci in the final days before the deadline, citing his May 2021 testimony that the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

David Morens, Dr. Fauci's top advisor, was indicted late last month for deliberately concealing information and falsifying records in an effort to suppress alternative theories regarding the origins of COVID-19. "David Morens, Dr.

Fauci's top advisor, was indicted, but Fauci himself still walks free," Paul posted on X. Paul renewed a criminal referral to the DOJ in July 2025 regarding Fauci’s May 2021 statements. In one of several posts this week, he wrote that the DOJ has 5 days to indict Fauci before the statute of limitations runs out.

"The clock is ticking. m. "Next week I’m holding a hearing with a whistleblower who will testify publicly about the COVID coverup," he posted on X.

M. " Paul has sent multiple criminal referrals to the DOJ. "While we can all have our beefs with Congress, this isn’t in our hands any longer.

"Whether he is indicted or not now is not up to Congress. " He added, "For years, I warned that Fauci and his inner circle buried the truth about Wuhan. Now his closest adviser has been indicted. Fauci lied to Congress under oath.

Former President Joe Biden issued a sweeping preemptive pardon of Dr. Anthony Fauci on January 19, 2025. President Donald Trump publicly rejected the Biden autopen pardons as having no force or legal effect.

The Trump Justice Department under former Attorney General Pam Bondi or acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has made no public statements about bringing charges against Fauci. Anyone who makes a materially false statement in a congressional investigation or review can face fines and up to five years in prison.

Fauci was the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and chief medical advisor to President Biden.

He has repeatedly denied lying to Congress. Fauci said he appreciates President Biden's pardon but insists "no crime" was committed. Sen. Rand Paul questioned Dr. Anthony Fauci during a Senate HELP Committee hearing on the federal response to monkeypox on September 14, 2022.

In a July 2021 Senate hearing, Paul asked Fauci: "Dr. " Fauci replied: "Sen.

Paul, I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement. ... Sen. Paul, you do not know what you're talking about, quite frankly. " In a February 2020 email, Dr. Anthony Fauci wrote that "scientists in Wuhan University are known to have been working on gain-of-function experiments" involving bat viruses and human infection.

Research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was funded under NIAID award R01AI110964 and involved combining spike genes from bat SARS-related coronaviruses with another coronavirus backbone to create chimeric viruses capable of infecting human cells.

A 2023 Government Accountability Office report found that the Wuhan Institute of Virology and Wuhan University received NIH funding. The 2023 GAO report stated that NIH funded a project that included genetic experiments to combine naturally occurring bat coronaviruses with SARS and MERS viruses, resulting in hybridized coronavirus strains.