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Rand Paul vows to keep pressure on Fauci as statute of limitations on criminal referral expires Monday
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The statute of limitations on Dr. Anthony Fauci’s criminal referral for lying to Congress about gain-of-function research expires Monday, but Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is vowing to keep up the pressure on «the COVID coverup» with a Senate hearing this week.
«David Morens, Dr. Fauci’s top advisor, was indicted, but Fauci himself still walks free,» Paul, who has long pressed Fauci in heated exchanges in congressional hearings, wrote this week on X, continuing his urging of the Justice Department to pick up charges from his criminal referral despite former President Joe Biden issuing a sweeping preemptive pardon of Fauci on his last night in office Jan. 19, 2025.
«The DOJ has 5 days to indict Fauci before the statute of limitations runs out. The clock is ticking. Justice cannot wait.»
The Biden pardon and Fauci’s statute of limitations expiration Monday shields the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and chief medical advisor to Biden, but Morens was indicted late last month for having «deliberately concealed information and falsified records in an effort to suppress alternative theories regarding the origins of COVID-19.»
EX-FAUCI TOP ADVISOR INDICTED OVER ALLEGED COVID COVER-UP, HIDDEN EMAILS
Sen. Rand Paul questions Dr. Anthony Fauci during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on the federal response to monkeypox on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 14, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
«For years, I warned that Fauci and his inner circle buried the truth about Wuhan,» Paul wrote Wednesday on X. «Now his closest adviser has been indicted.
«Fauci lied to Congress under oath. The statute of limitations expires in 5 days. Will the DOJ finally indict Fauci?»
The Trump Justice Department under former Attorney General Pam Bondi or acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has made no public statements about bringing charges.
ANTHONY FAUCI MAY BE DEPOSED AS GOP INTENSIFIES COVID INVESTIGATIONS IN NEW CONGRESS
«While we can all have our beefs with Congress, this isn’t in our hands any longer,» Paul wrote Thursday on X. «I DID the work, investigated, and sent multiple CRIMINAL referrals to the DOJ.
«Whether he is indicted or not now is not up to Congress. It is up to the DoJ, and no one else.»
«He lied to Congress about NIH funding dangerous gain-of-function research in Wuhan and engaged in the worst cover-up in modern medical history,» Paul added in another X post. «The American people want Fauci behind bars.»
BIDEN TEAM REPORTEDLY CONSIDERING PREEMPTIVE PARDONS FOR FAUCI, SCHIFF, OTHER TRUMP ‘TARGETS’
Dr. Anthony Fauci gives an opening statement during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on the federal response to COVID-19 and new variants on Jan. 11, 2022, at Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Sen. Rand Paul also speaks during the hearing titled «Addressing New Variants: A Federal Perspective on the COVID-19 Response.» (Greg Nash/AFP/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump has publicly rejected the Biden autopen pardons as having no force or «legal effect,» but there is no precedent for a new president nullifying a past president’s pardons, because they would potentially render presidential pardon authority ultimately powerless against a new administration’s agenda.
«Anyone receiving ‘Pardons,’ ‘Commutations,’ or any other Legal Document so signed, please be advised that said Document has been fully and completely terminated, and is of no Legal effect,» Trump wrote in December on Truth Social.
Just two days after the Fauci clock runs out, Paul is chairing a Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs committee hearing with a «COVID coverup» whistleblower Wednesday.
FBI EXAMINING COVID-19 ORIGIN ‘COVER-UP’ AMID NEW STRAIN EMERGENCE: BONGINO
«Next week I’m holding a hearing with a whistleblower who will testify publicly about the COVID coverup,» Paul teased in an X post. «Mark your calendars: Wednesday, May 13 at 10 a.m.
«The truth is coming.»
Paul renewed a criminal referral to the DOJ last July to investigate whether Fauci’s May 2021 statements violated federal false-statements law. In the referral, Paul pointed to Fauci’s testimony that «the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.»
DOJ INVESTIGATING ANDREW CUOMO FOR ALLEGEDLY LYING ABOUT COVID DECISIONS, SOURCE CONFIRMS
Paul’s referral also noted Fauci later said he had «never lied before the Congress» and did «not retract that statement» after Paul warned him about the criminal implications of lying to Congress.
The referral cites a February 2020 email released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, in which Fauci wrote that «scientists in Wuhan University are known to have been working on gain-of-function experiments» involving bat viruses and human infection.
Paul argued that the email contradicted Fauci’s sworn testimony.
COVID ‘MOST LIKELY’ LEAKED FROM WUHAN LAB, SOCIAL DISTANCING ‘NOT BASED ON SCIENCE,’ SELECT COMMITTEE FINDS
Paul also cited research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) that he said was funded under a NIAID award and involved combining spike genes from bat SARS-related coronaviruses with another coronavirus backbone to create chimeric viruses capable of infecting human cells.
«This research, conducted at the WIV and funded under NIAID Award R01AI110964, fits the definition of gain-of-function research,» the referral stated.
The criminal referral further cites a 2023 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that found the WIV and Wuhan University received NIH funding. According to Paul’s referral, the GAO said NIH funded a project that included «genetic experiments to combine naturally occurring bat coronaviruses with SARS and MERS viruses, resulting in hybridized coronavirus strains.»
SCIENTISTS EXPECT MAJOR ‘MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGHS’ DESPITE TRUMP’S CAP ON NIH RESEARCH FUNDING
Anyone who makes a materially false statement in a congressional investigation or review can face fines and up to five years in prison.
Paul’s July referral also challenged the legal effect of a preemptive pardon Fauci received from Biden’s autopen.
«New information has revealed that these pardons were executed via autopen, with no documented confirmation that the President personally reviewed or approved each individual grant of clemency,» Paul wrote. «According to reports, White House staff authorized the use of the autopen to issue the clemency documents.
«This raises serious constitutional and legal concerns about the legitimacy of Dr. Fauci’s pardon.»
GREGG JARRETT: BIDEN, THE ‘MARIONETTE PRESIDENT; AND THE CASE OF THE RUNAWAY AUTOPEN
Fauci has repeatedly denied lying to Congress, including forcefully to Paul himself in multiple congressional hearings.
«Dr. Fauci, knowing that it is a crime to lie to Congress, do you wish to retract your statement of May 11 [2021], where you claimed at the NIH never funded gain-of-function research and move on?» Paul asked in a July 2021 Senate hearing.
«Sen. Paul, I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement,» Fauci shot back.
«Let me finish!» Fauci added, when Paul tried to interject. «Sen. Paul, you do not know what you’re talking about, quite frankly. And I want to say that officially, you do not know what you’re talking about.»
DR. FAUCI SAYS HE APPRECIATES PRESIDENT BIDEN’S PARDON BUT INSISTS ‘NO CRIME’ WAS COMMITTED
The nature of the alleged lie revolves around the definition and denials of gain-of-function research surrounding COVID-19.
«You’re dancing around this because you’re trying to obscure responsibility for four million people dying around them from a pandemic,» Paul said in the famed exchange, adding, «you are obviously obfuscating the truth.»
Fauci replied, «I’m not obfuscating the truth – you are.»
«You are implying that what we did was responsible for the deaths of individuals,» he added. «I totally resent that.»
Paul shot back, «It could have been.»
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«If there is any lying here, senator, it is you,» Fauci said, shaking his finger at Paul.
Sitting members of Congress are provided immunity under the speech and debate clause of the Constitution, while most of those investigated by Congress and subject to testifying under oath, which Fauci did.
anthony fauci, hearings, congress, rand paul, investigations
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African and Caribbean leaders call for payments, debt cancellation, formal apologies over slavery
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African and Caribbean leaders are demanding financial compensation, debt cancellation and formal apologies from countries that benefited from the transatlantic slave trade after adopting a sweeping reparations plan at a conference in Ghana.
The 19-point framework calls for financial compensation, debt relief, a Global Reparations Fund and the return of looted cultural artifacts and ancestral remains. It also seeks reforms to international financial institutions that supporters say disadvantage Third World countries.
The proposal is expected to be presented at the next UN General Assembly as African and Caribbean nations step up a coordinated push for slavery reparations.
The plan was adopted Friday by the African Union and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Commission on Reparatory Justice at the end of a three-day conference.
REPARATIONS ADVOCATES PUSH FOR PAYMENTS TO BLACK AMERICANS DESPITE BUDGET AND LEGAL CHALLENGES
John Dramani Mahama, president of Ghana, and other dignitaries attend a wreath-laying event at Christiansborg Castle in Accra, Ghana, Friday, during a high-level conference on the United Nations resolution addressing the trafficking of enslaved Africans. (Ernest Ankomah/Getty Images)
«None of us gathered in this hall today can be held personally responsible for the atrocities of the transatlantic slave trade,» Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama told delegates.
«History does not ask us to inherit guilt, but it asks us to inherit responsibility,» Mahama added.
The proposal does not identify specific countries that should provide compensation or issue formal apologies.
TULSA MAYOR PROPOSES $100M REPARATIONS PLAN FOR DESCENDANTS OF 1921 TULSA RACE MASSACRE
John Dramani Mahama, president of Ghana, lays a wreath at Christiansborg Castle in Accra during a high-level conference on the United Nations resolution addressing the trafficking of enslaved Africans on Friday. (Ernest Ankomah/Getty Images)
It does call for debt cancellation, climate justice financing, expanded citizenship pathways for Africans in the diaspora and what organizers describe as a «right of return» for descendants of enslaved Africans.
The plan also urges African countries to preserve former slave forts and castles as memorial sites.
According to advocates, at least 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped and transported aboard European ships between the 15th and 19th centuries. Supporters of reparations argue the effects of slavery continue to be felt across Africa and the Caribbean generations later.
UN COURT RULES WEALTHY NATIONS PAY UP FOR CLIMATE CHANGE DAMAGES IN CONTROVERSIAL GLOBAL RULING
President John Dramani Mahama and Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa host a high-level consultative conference on the next steps following the United Nations resolution on trafficking of enslaved Africans in Accra, Ghana, on Thursday. (Ernest Ankomah/Getty Images)
The conference follows a UN vote in March recognizing transatlantic slavery as the «gravest crime against humanity.»
The resolution passed with 123 votes in favor, but the U.S., Israel and 52 other countries either voted against it or abstained.
According to Reuters, the United States and European Union raised concerns that the resolution could be interpreted as creating a hierarchy among crimes against humanity by treating some atrocities as more serious than others.
MACRON TAKES THE STAGE UNINVITED AT AFRICA SUMMIT TO SCOLD CROWD FOR ‘TOTAL LACK OF RESPECT’
John Dramani Mahama, president of Ghana, Mia Amor Mottley, prime minister of Barbados, and Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Ghana’s foreign affairs minister, attend a wreath-laying event at Christiansborg Castle in Accra, Ghana, Friday, during a high-level conference on the United Nations resolution addressing the trafficking of enslaved Africans. (Ernest Ankomah/Getty Images)
Heads of state from Namibia, Liberia, Senegal, Barbados and Sao Tome and Principe attended the conference, along with senior officials from several other countries.
French President Emmanuel Macron addressed the gathering virtually from the Élysée Palace, where he acknowledged the suffering caused by slavery.
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Enslaved people were «torn from their homelands, deported, dehumanised, and treated as goods,» Macron said.
Macron also said reparations should not be viewed «as an end point, or a cheque written to bring the story to a close.»
The conference in Ghana brought together separate reparations efforts previously pursued by African and Caribbean nations into a single document that organizers plan to take before the United Nations.
Reuters contributed to this report.
africa, united nations, caribbean, heritage, general assembly, world
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Former Olympian among those charged with vandalizing Reflecting Pool; Trump says basin must be drained: report
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Multiple people have been arrested this weekend after allegedly vandalizing the newly refurbished Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, prompting a strong response from President Donald Trump and an increase in security at the site.
In a statement on Truth Social Saturday night, Trump announced «many additional people» have been arrested after suspects «took some form of knife or blade, and put a 250-foot-long gash into the beautiful facade of what took so much work, competence, and money to build and complete.»
The president also alleged suspects «poured corrosive and destructive chemicals» into the basin.
«It hasn’t looked or worked like this since 1922, when it was originally built, but even then, it leaked badly, and didn’t work,» Trump wrote in the post. «Ours worked perfectly, including the mirror like finish, perfectly reflecting the two Great Monuments, which it never had before! What these terrible Vandals have done is a true affront to both Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and should be dealt with accordingly.»
TRUMP SAYS VANDALS USED CHEMICALS TO DAMAGE NEWLY RENOVATED REFLECTING POOL NEAR LINCOLN MEMORIAL
National Park Service employees and contractors use vacuums to remove green algae from the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Thursday, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Trump said administration officials met with contractors Saturday and will likely need to drain «much of the water» in order to do the necessary repairs.
It is unclear if the contractors mentioned are the same ones initially employed to carry out the renovations.
«[We] will have them done as quickly as possible,» the president wrote. «What they have damaged does not even include the earlier killing of a large amount of grass which was, by far, the least of it.
«… The Reflecting Pool was never so beautiful as it was just one week ago, even going back to 1922 when it opened. We are very proud of what we have done with this magnificent structure, and we will get it repaired, quickly, to an equal level of Beauty.»
The announcement came as the administration faces scrutiny over peeling paint and algae growth just weeks after a $14.8 million restoration project was completed.
While Trump did not specify who was responsible for the alleged gash in the lining and subsequent peeling, multiple arrests were documented over the weekend by local reporters.
Paint peels from the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C. (Annabelle Gordon/Reuters)
TRUMP TAKES MOTORCADE INTO REFLECTING POOL, BLASTS PAST ‘$38M DISASTER’ FIX UNDER OBAMA
Journalist Emily Miller posted a two-minute video on X Friday showing a man in lime green racing gear questioning a National Guardsman before being handcuffed by U.S. Park Police.
The Washington Post later identified the man in Miller’s video as David Hearn, 67, a three-time Olympian who was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of destruction of government property.
Hearn told the outlet he had just finished a 52-mile bike ride when he noticed a «partially detached piece» of the new pool liner and «reached into the water to see what it felt like.»
The Bethesda, Maryland, native told The Associated Press he owned a company that made composite used to build watercraft.
Former U.S. Olympian David Hearn was arrested after allegedly vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C. (David Madison/Getty Images, File)
While Miller claimed in her post that Hearn «grabbed» a hose that National Park Service workers were using to remediate algae growth, Hearn told The Washington Post the hose «may» only have been touched by his bike tire.
«I didn’t vandalize anything,» Hearn told the outlet.
Hearn, who was arrested in 1996 on charges of canoeing on the Potomac River but later had them dropped, said, «I didn’t destroy, break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was happening, I was already being handcuffed.»
National Guard members walk past a National Park Service employee using a vacuum to clean the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Friday, in Washington. D.C. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Miller reported that seven people were detained Friday and five people were detained Saturday in separate incidents, which has led to a major security surge.
In an earlier Truth Social post Saturday, Trump questioned, «Who would do such a thing?»
«These are very serious crimes having to do with the destruction of National Monuments,» the president wrote. «Years in jail! Work will begin immediately on its repair.»
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The White House, U.S. Park Police and Miller did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Michael Sinkewicz contributed to this report.
vandalism, national guard, white house, parks, donald trump, police and law enforcement, washington dc
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