Transcription
[Music] [Applause]
The Trump Administration is preparing to issue an executive order halting gain of function research. Controversial experimentation on viruses is increasingly feared to have caused COVID in the first place, with the CIA declaring in recent days that they too believe COVID likely came from a Chinese lab and not from animal spillover.
Now, the theory was once considered fringe and even a conspiracy by the mainstream media, but it's now itself mainstream. One lawmaker who has been sounding alarms about it for a very long time is Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who has frequently sparred with Dr. Anthony Fauci about his support for this research.
Just yesterday, the Senate committee the senator chairs subpoenaed 14 federal agencies from the Biden Administration in a sweeping investigation into the origins of COVID. Here to elaborate on that investigation is Senator Paul, who also serves as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
Welcome to Rising, Senator.
Thanks for having me. It's great to have you back.
A lot of news related to COVID origins and gain of function in recent days. Of course, there was the preemptive pardon of Dr. Fauci, which I'll ask you to address in a minute. But first, can you just give us more information about what you are seeking in terms of these subpoenas from the agencies you are pursuing?
Generally, we want to know what type of gain of function research is going on throughout government and what kind of oversight there is. We're very concerned because the research money that was sent to China, to Wuhan specifically, went before a group of people in the NIH called the Dual Use Research of Concern Gain of Function Committee. It went before that committee and it should have gone next to a Safety Committee, but somehow that committee was bypassed.
We've been asking specifically for the deliberations of that committee. What were the arguments for why it didn't need to go to the Safety Committee? What were the arguments for why it was or was not gain of function? The NIH has steadfastly refused to give us this information.
It's a very specific meeting; we know it exists. The only reason we know they even meant to discuss it, though, is because Freedom of Information retrievals have shown us this. They have never admitted that they even have such a meeting. They will not tell us who attends the meeting, and they will not give us the deliberations of what occurred at the meeting.
But we are going to find this out. We've sent them a subpoena. We now have a friendlier administration, and we will get to the bottom of this. This is incredibly important because if we have ongoing money that is funding dangerous research, we need to know who's discussing it, who's involved, the deliberations, and who ultimately approves it.
Was this ultimately approved by Anthony Fauci or Francis Collins? And why did they bypass the Safety Committee? These are big questions, and they're big questions also as it moves forward.
Now, the fact that the president's going to put a pause on gain of function is a good idea. We did this from 2014 to 2016, and then we instituted the Safety Committee, which they promptly bypassed.
So what we want to do is actual legislation this time. We have something called the Risky Research Review Act, and it would set up a presidential commission of scientists to evaluate each gain of function proposal within government and either fund it or not fund it after an extensive safety discussion.
And one more question there, Senator. On the Fauci front, you mentioned this pause in gain of function research that existed, that was decreed by President Obama back in 2014. I found it curious, and I know many other people did too, so I want to get your take that this preemptive pardon for Dr. Fauci covers not just the time he was overseeing the COVID response and also not his entire career in public service, which goes back to the 80s, but specifically kicks in based on the order in 2014, the year the pause went into effect.
But we know from hearing Fauci's deposition that even under that pause, you could, under National Security exceptions—which you and I know ends up getting abused to cover just about anything—that Dr. Fauci may have signed off on some research anyway, even when the pause was initiated in 2014.
Do you have concern that this pardon is structured to help him avoid scrutiny from what took place there?
Well, you know, first of all, a preemptive pardon, I think history's going to judge him harshly for accepting this. You don't have to accept a presidential pardon, but if you do accept a pardon, the Supreme Court has ruled that you are also accepting guilt.
So he now has accepted guilt or culpability for the pandemic, and going all the way back to 2014, yeah, there were a lot of decisions made, a lot of decisions on funding the research, going back a few years before the actual accident occurred. So yes, I'm concerned with this, but I think in the end this ends up being more damaging to Fauci's reputation than just about anything else.
It also makes him liable to testify. He no longer gets Fifth Amendment immunity and says, "Oh, I can't testify because I might be prosecuted for having broken the law." So if he is made to testify again in the future, he will not be able to take the Fifth Amendment.
We don't know if that'll happen, but the first thing we're going to do is get the documents for what was the deliberation, who made the deliberation, and who signed off on approving the money going to Wuhan. If he's in that loop somewhere, ultimately he will be made to come in and testify.
Let me just push back a little bit on that issue about the preemptive pardon, Senator, because your argument is that the Supreme Court posits that that is an acceptance of guilt. I think you characterize Dr. Fauci as, by virtue of accepting this preemptive pardon, accepting guilt for the pandemic, or something to that effect.
I mean, he clearly does not accept that guilt if one takes him at his word publicly, and he hasn't been charged with anything. So is it really fair to characterize the acceptance of a preemptive pardon as an admission of guilt?
I think when you accept a preemptive pardon that is unspecified, it is difficult to decide what exactly he's guilty of. But the things he's been accused of, you would think, are the things he's being pardoned from.
You know, I don't think we're going to say he's guilty of stealing a car, but you know he's been accused of approving the funding, and we know from his public and private statements that he did approve this funding. He quibbles with whether or not it was gain of function or whether or not the accident occurred there, but we know from his public statements that he said, going all the way back to 2011, that gain of function research is worth it even if an accident should occur, even if a pandemic should occur from an accident.
The knowledge gained is worth the risk. That's a political or policy or philosophical position. There's been a divide in the scientific community really since they were able to reconstruct the Spanish Flu back in 2004, and then someone was able to mutate the avian flu to make it more adaptable and more contagious and more infectious for mammals.
These things scared the you-know-what out of a lot of scientists, and it was a huge debate. But Anthony Fauci was more powerful than many scientists, maybe one of the most powerful bureaucratic scientists in the world over a 40-year period, and so he put his thumb on the scales.
But without question, we know that he favors this research, and without question, we now have three intelligence agencies who say they believe, after looking at all the evidence, that it did come from the lab. So yeah, I think he'll be judged harshly, and whether or not you can legally say he's guilty of something, it's a little difficult.
But we also don't have a lot of experience with preemptive pardons for non-specific crimes. But I think the burden will be on him to try to prove that he didn't accept guilt for the pandemic. I mean, that burden is going to be on him for the rest of time.
Have you been able to provide any advice to Trump in terms of issuing this executive order? Because my fear is that, like last time, when we tried to, the political forces, the Democrats, Obama, tried to constrain the medical establishment from doing this research, there were still exceptions, and they were able to do it.
Is there going to be a more robust effort to limit this research going forward?
The problem with a broad ban of everything gain of function is that it is a category in which there could possibly be good research that could be called gain of function. So I think what you have to do is examine grant by grant, and that's why I actually favor a commission of scientists with the ability to veto money and with the ability to look at all research, classified and unclassified, and make these judgments, as opposed to a ban.
Bans are clunky in the sense that it gets down to the definition, and there is the possibility there could be something of value. So I think that'll be looked at one at a time. I'm for the ban as a temporary means of getting to legislation.
My legislation is bipartisan and passed out of committee 13 to 1 last Congress, so I will introduce that again. It comes out of my committee. If we can get it done in the House and the Senate, I think we can get President Trump's signature on it.
But I am thankful that they're doing something immediately to lessen the danger of another accident.
Senator Rand Paul, thank you so much for joining us to discuss. We really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Coming up, banning transgender people in the military. We'll tell you all about it right after this. Stay with us.
[Music]