Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is slated to grill Dr. Anthony Fauci during a congressional hearing later this month on his role in gain-of-function research funding that preceded the COVID-19 outbreak over six years ago.
The former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is set to testify on July 29, Paul announced on Monday.
“Anthony Fauci has obfuscated his role in funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab,” the senator posted on X. “My years-long investigation has uncovered how he manipulated his intelligence community connections to alter the narrative on COVID’s origins. On July 29, 2026, we will confront him with the truth.”
MAHA Action, a nonprofit group associated with the Make America Healthy Again movement, welcomed the news.
“After years of questions surrounding his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and new evidence proving he played a direct role in the funding of research at the Wuhan lab, Fauci will finally face public questioning before Congress,” the organization said.
Fauci has testified before Congress multiple times since the COVID-19 outbreak. In past hearings, Paul has frequently questioned the former White House medical adviser about bat coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. The lab received its funding from EcoHealth Alliance, which was first awarded an NIAID grant in 2014.
Paul claims Fauci covered up the connections between funding from federal agencies and research conducted in China that may have triggered the worldwide pandemic. The Kentucky Republican has recently released declassified documents regarding Fauci’s ties to the intelligence community, specifically his role in influencing the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to classify the pandemic a natural occurrence rather than a lab leak.
Before she left office last month, former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released declassified documents showing that Fauci misled U.S. spy agencies into discounting the lab-leak theory at the time. The consensus has since changed.
TIMELINE OF FAUCI’S INVOLVEMENT IN THE ORIGIN OF COVID-19 DEBATE
The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, chaired by Paul, will hold the hearing with Fauci.
Also on Monday, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) asked acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to appoint a special counsel to investigate Fauci for his faulty guidance. Additionally, he called for a review of Fauci’s pardon issued by former President Joe Biden on his last day in office in January 2025. Marshall questioned whether the autopen-signed pardon makes the clemency action illegitimate, in which case Fauci must not be allowed to “skirt accountability.”