Hageman, Rand Paul hold town hall in Cheyenne

Wyoming Tribune Eagle ^ | 3/7/22 | Hannah Black

[conservative98]

CHEYENNE – U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., joined congressional candidate Harriet Hageman at a town hall here Monday morning. The two mainly focused on criticism of Dr. Anthony Fauci, and what they said were abuses of power by the federal government.

Hageman spoke to a ballroom packed with supporters Monday morning at Little America Hotel and Resort in Cheyenne. The Goshen County native is running against current Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., for Wyoming’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Hageman's official campaign announcement came in September, just hours after an endorsement from former President Donald Trump.

Paul endorsed Hageman in December, saying, in part: "Harriet represents the spirit of Wyoming, which is full of people who want to live their lives without the oppressive weight of the federal government on their backs. Harriet is a staunch defender of every word of the Bill of Rights with the belief that people should be able to pursue life, liberty and happiness without worrying that the federal government will be intruding, impeding or impairing their ability to improve their own lives."

While Hageman said after the event that COVID-19 was not a big part of her campaign, she said it was an issue of importance for Wyoming voters.

The main reason she focused on the issue at Monday's town hall, she said, was because Paul has been an outspoken critic of Fauci. The senator, an ophthalmologist by training, has engaged in heated exchanges with Fauci in Senate committee meetings.

Fauci currently serves as chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, and is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Hageman began the speech by drawing contrast between herself and Cheney, saying she'd learned from Wyomingites that they were ready for "new blood" in Congress.

"The people of Wyoming want someone from Wyoming, someone who understands Wyoming, someone who will put Wyoming first," she said. "Someone who understands that being a representative is not about power and control, but about public service and honoring the commitment to pursue your agenda – not that of the radical Democrats, the military industrial complex or the beltway insiders."

She quickly launched into criticism of Fauci. Hageman said that, as she watched news conferences with the immunologist early on in the pandemic, "it was apparent to me that he was covering something up."

It was strange Fauci dismissed the idea that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, came from a lab in Wuhan, China, before an investigation had been done, Hageman said. She also questioned Fauci's seemingly singular push for vaccination, rather than a discussion about therapeutics or natural immunity.

Now, Fauci "is slowly being exposed for what he is: a tyrant, unethical, corrupt – but someone that my opponent (Cheney) has called one of the finest public servants in our country," Hageman said.

"The veil is being pulled back. We are learning that (Fauci) funded the Wuhan lab," she said.

Hageman credited Sen. Paul as a main contributor to the conversation surrounding what they say is Fauci's role in lying about or obscuring facts about the COVID-19 pandemic.

"All of this exposure is largely attributable to one man – one person (Paul) who understood the science, one person who has been a champion of freedom and liberty, and one person who's willing to do the research and expose Dr. Fauci for who and what he is," she said.

Paul and others have accused the National Institutes of Health of helping fund a type of research at the Wuhan virology lab they say could have produced SARS-CoV-2. The NIH has said bat coronaviruses studied under the grant in question could not have created SARS-CoV-2.

Three recent studies point to a market in Wuhan as the source of the outbreak, rather than the Wuhan Institute of Virology. These studies have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

Paul said the same group of scientists who signed a letter saying COVID-19 likely came from nature "were the same people sending money to the Wuhan lab."

The U.S. senator said it's not just about accountability for "the people who did this," but about better regulating things like gain-of-function research, which Paul said can be used to make viruses more deadly.

Fauci's flip-flopping on the efficacy of mask wearing, Paul said, is an example of the Fauci thinking "that he lies to us for our own good."

Fauci has said he initially did not recommend the public wearing masks because of a concern about a shortage of personal protective equipment for health care workers, and because data about how contagious the virus was or how it spread was not as concrete as it became later in the pandemic.

Children are more likely to be struck by lightning that they are to die from COVID, Paul said. The crowd laughed when Paul suggested that, if children are required to wear masks in schools, they should also have to wear helmets with lightning rods.

Some studies have shown mask wearing in schools reduces the transmission of COVID. Other studies conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, have been questioned for not factoring in vaccination rates.

Others have argued that masking in schools is not just about children, but is an effort to protect teachers, family members and others in the community who are more vulnerable to getting the virus from young students.

Balancing these risks, including whether to get vaccinated against COVID-19, should be up to the individual, Paul said.

Along with supporting the effort to investigate Fauci, Hageman said she was excited to join Paul in Congress to fight against vaccine and other "destructive" mandates, "the deep state targeting U.S. citizens, the corruption of the (U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) and the Democrat effort to turn our law enforcement agencies into their own form of the East German Stasi."

Paul said that while he partly supports challenging Cheney because of her vote to impeach Trump, it goes beyond that, to "the principles our country was founded upon."

"(Cheney's) vote for (the) Jan. 6 committee, and her vote to use this enormous and abusive subpoena power on her fellow Republican congressmen, is arguably even worse than her vote on impeachment," he said, to loud applause from the crowd.

Paul added that if the Jan. 6 committee was investigating Biden, he would still oppose it, because it's an abuse of power.

He said the abuses extend back to Cheney's father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, and the George W. Bush administration's establishment of the Patriot Act. In part, the Patriot Act expanded both domestic and foreign surveillance by the U.S. government.

Another reason he chose to support Hageman, Paul said, was her history as an attorney fighting against the federal government in court over things like property rights.

The senator also invoked a recent debate in Wyoming about crossover voting, which would prevent voters in the state from changing their party affiliation on Election Day.

After the event, Hageman said to members of the news media that she was "confident" she could beat Cheney, even if the bill to prevent crossover voting, Senate File 97, does not pass. Former President Trump has voiced his support for the Wyoming bill.

[ridesthemiles]

While you are driving around Wyoming-—look long & hard at where there are NOT any places for charging stations.

[Hildy]

I have met Harriet Hageman. She is the most brilliant woman I have ever spent time with. That is not joke.

[Lisbon1940]

It’s better to be a rep than a senator from Wyoming since there is just one of them.

[Skybird]

Go Harriet—squash the poisonous Lizard!!