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REPUBLICAN SENATORS AND FAUCI GO TO WAR: READ THE TENSE EXCHANGES IN FULL

Senator Rand Paul: The idea that a government official, like yourself, would claim unilaterally — unilaterally to represent science, and that any criticism of you would be considered a criticism of science itself, is quite dangerous. Central planning, whether it be of the economy or of science, is risky because of the fallibility of the planner, would not be so catastrophic if the planner were simply one physician in Peoria. Then the mistakes would only affect that physician’s patients and the people who chose that physician.

But when the planner is a government official, like yourself, who rules by mandate, the errors are compounded and become much more harmful. A planner who believes he is the science leads to an arrogance that justifies, in his mind, using government resources to smear and to destroy the reputations of other scientists who disagree with him.

In an email exchange with [NiH Director Dr. Francis Collins ] you conspire, and I quote here directly from the email, to create a “quick and devastating publish takedown” of three prominent epidemiologists from Harvard, Oxford and Stanford. Apparently there’s a lot of fringe epidemiologists at Harvard, Oxford and Stanford.

And you quote in the email from Dr. Collins, and you agree, that they are fringe. And immediately this is takedown ethic, a published takedown though doesn’t exactly conjure up the image of a dispassionate scientist. Instead of engaging them on the merits, you and Dr. Collins sought to smear them as fringe and take them down. And not in journals, in lay press. This is not only antithetical to the scientific method, it’s the epitome of cheap politics and it’s reprehensible, Dr. Fauci. Do you really think it’s appropriate to use your $420,000 salary to attack scientists that disagree with you?

Fauci: The email you were referring to was an email of Dr. Collins to me, if you look at the email —

Paul: — That you responded to, and hurried up and said “I can do it I can do it, we got something in Wired Magazine —

Fauci: No, no, no, no, I think in usual fashion, Senator, you are distorting everything about me.

Paul: Did you ever object to Dr. Collins’s characterization of them as fringe? Did you write back to Dr. Collins saying “No, they’re not fringe, they are esteemed scientists and it would be beneath me — “

Fauci: I did not do that.

Paul: You responded to him to that you would do it, and you immediately got an article in Wired, and sent it back to him and said “Hey look I’ve got him, I nailed him in Wired,” of all scientific publications.

Fauci: That’s not what went on. There you go again, you just do the same thing every hearing —

Paul: — That was your response. That was your response —

Fauci: — No, no —

Paul: — And this wasn’t the only time. So your desire to tear down people —

Fauci: You’re absolutely incorrect as usual, Senator, you’re incorrect. Almost everything you’ve said.

Paul: You deny, you deny, but the emails tell the truth of this.

Fauci: No.

Paul: This wasn’t the only time. Your desire to take down those who disagree with you didn’t stop with Harvard, Oxford and Stanford. You conspired with Peter Daszak, who you communicated with privately, and other members of the scientific community that wrote opinion pieces for Nature — five of them signed a paper for Nature, an opinion piece, 17 signed a paper that called it “conspiracy theory,” the idea that the virus could have originated in the lab. Do you think words like “conspiracy theory” should be in a scientific paper?

Fauci: Senator, I never used that word, when I was referring to it. You’re distorting virtually everything —

Paul: Did you communicate with the five scientists who wrote the opinion piece in Nature, where they were describing “Oh, this — there’s no way this could actually come from a lab.”

Fauci: That was not me. What I did —

Paul: Did you talk with any of those scientists privately?

Fauci: You keep that you keep the truth. It is stunning how you do that.

Paul: Did you? Did you talk to any of the scientists privately, who wrote the opinion —

Fauci: Yes.

Paul: You did. Well what were they telling you privately?

Fauci: Well, let me explain — you know, you’re going back to that original discussion when I brought together, a group of people to look at every possibility with an open mind. So you not — not only are you distorting it, you’re completely turning it around. As you usually do.

Paul: And those are the scientists that came to you privately. Did they come to you privately and say “No way this came from the lab,” or was their initial impression, Dr. Gary and others that were involved, was their initial impression, actually, that it looked very suspicious for a virus and came from a lab?

Fauci: Senator. We are here at a committee to look at a virus now that has killed almost 900,000 people and the purpose of the committee was to try and get things out how we can help to get the American public. And you keep coming back to personal attacks on me that have absolutely no relevance to reality.

Paul: Do you think anybody has had more influence over our response to this than you have? Do you think it’s a great success?

Fauci: Let me finish — Madam Chair, can I —

Paul: Do you think it’s a great success what’s happened so far?

Fauci — You have said —

Paul: Do you think the lockdowns are good for our kids? Do you think we slowed down the death rate? More people have died now under President Biden than did under President Trump. You are the one responsible, you are the architect. You’re the lead architect for the response from the government. And now 800,000 people have died.

Fauci: Right.

Paul: But you think that’s a winning success what you’ve advocated for government?

Fauci: Senator, first of all, if you look at everything that I said, you accuse me of — in a monolithic way — telling people what they need to do. Everything that I have said has been in support of the CDC guidelines. Wear a mask, get boosted, get vaccinated.

Paul: And you’ve advocated to make it coercive, and [intelligible] advocated for it to be done by mandate.

Fauci: Take a look at everything I’ve said.

Paul: You’ve advocated that your infallible opinion be dictated by law.

Fauci: Madam Chair, I would like just a couple of minutes because this, this happens all the time. You personally attack me, and with absolutely not a shred of evidence of anything you say. So I would like to make something clear to the committee: he’s doing this for political reasons. What you need to do is — he said in front of this committee —

Paul: — You think your takedown of three prominent epidemiologists was not political? That was my question —

Fauci: — You don’t want me to finish because you know what I’m going to say.

Paul: That was the question. Were you political in taking down these three prominent epidemiologists?

Chairwoman Patty Murray: Senator, Senator we will — at this point — at this point — Senator Paul, if you would please. I’m going to allow this, going to allow Dr. Fauci to respond. We have a number of Senators who have to ask questions and I would like him to be able to respond. Please do.

Fauci: So, the last time we had a committee or the time before, he was accusing me of being responsible for the death of 5 — 4 to 5 million people, which is really irresponsible and I said, “Why is he doing that?” There are two reasons why that’s really bad.

The first is, it distracts from what we’re all trying to do here today, is get our arms around the epidemic and the pandemic that we’re dealing with. Not something imaginary.

Number two, what happens when he gets out and accuses me of things that are completely untrue, is that all of a sudden that kindles the crazies out there, and I have life — threats upon my life — harassments of my family, and my children with obscene phone calls, because people are lying about me. Now, now — I guess you could say well, that’s the way it goes. I can take the hit.

Well, it makes a difference. Because as some of you may know, just about three or four weeks ago on December 21, a person was arrested who was on their way from Sacramento to Washington, DC at a speed stop in Iowa. And they asked — the police asked him where he was going, and he was going to Washington, DC to kill Dr. Fauci. And they found in his car an AR-15, and multiple magazines of ammunition. Because he thinks that maybe I’m killing people.

So I asked myself, “Why would Senator want to do this?” So go to Rand Paul website, and you see “Fire Dr. Fauci” with a little box that says, “Contribute here.” You could do $5 $10 $20 $100. So you are making a catastrophic epidemic for your political gain. So the only thing — the only thing that I can —

Paul: You have politically attacked your colleagues, and in a politically reprehensible way, you’ve attacked their reputations.

Fauci: The only thing that I can think of —

Paul: — You won’t defend it, you won’t argue it, you’ll simply turn around the attack.

Fauci: — No, no —

Murray: Okay we — I’m sorry this — we’re going to continue this hearing, we have a number of questions from other senators —

Fauci: Yeah, Right. Just one — one more minute, please, if my —

Murray: Dr. Fauci, I really appreciate your response, but we do have a number of questions from senators and we do have a second round and I’m being asked to make sure that we — everybody has their time. So thank you.

Fauci: Thank you very much for allowing me, Madam Chair.