Dr. Anthony Fauci frequently clashed with former President Donald Trump and allies by disputing incorrect claims made by Trump on the pandemic || Screenshot USA Today
Gregory Svirnovskiy || The Arizona Republic
Republicans including Reps. Andy Biggs and Debbie Lesko teased congressional investigations of Dr. Anthony Fauci Monday if the GOP retakes the House in November.
Fauci, the top White House medical adviser, announced he is leaving the federal government after more than 50 years fighting disease outbreaks and other public health threats at the National Institutes of Health. He spent much his career in the background, advising seven presidents on public health issues ranging from HIV/AIDS in the 1980s to a smattering of global disease outbreaks after the turn of the century. His work as the public face of the scientific community’s response to COVID-19 catapulted made Fauci a household name.
But he frequently clashed with former President Donald Trump and allies by disputing incorrect claims made by Trump on the pandemic and by calling for longer and strengthened lockdowns throughout the 2020 election and became reviled by the political right.
“House Republicans will hold Dr. Fauci accountable for authorizing gain-of-function research in Communist China and encouraging authoritarian COVID mandates that destroyed millions of Americans’ lives,” Lesko, R-Ariz., said Monday in a Twitter message.
Gain-of-function research is the focal point of a theory that COVID-19 originated in a virology lab in Wuhan, China, the first global epicenter of the pandemic. Republican Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Roger Marshall, R-Kan., have accused Fauci of indirectly funding the Wuhan research that they say could have led to the first COVID-19 outbreak.
