Top Republicans: Fauci Leaving Government Won’t Shield Him From Congressional Probe

Zachary StieberAugust 22, 2022

Dr. Anthony Fauci leaving the government won’t shield him from a probe that Republicans in Congress plan to launch in early 2023, top lawmakers said on Aug. 22.

“Retirement can’t shield Dr. Fauci from congressional oversight,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement.

Fauci announced hours earlier that he will step down in December, just weeks before Republicans expect to take control of the House of Representatives.

The GOP is in the minority in the lower chamber but based on historical election patterns and President Joe Biden’s lagging approval ratings, the party is forecast to flip enough seats to gain a majority in the upcoming midterm elections.

That would make a Republican the chair of each committee, likely landing Comer the chair of the Oversight Committee.

Republicans have vowed to investigate Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; former National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Francis Collins; and other key pandemic-era government officials over the early response to the pandemic, if they take power in either congressional chamber.

Emails obtained and made public by the committee and news outlets showed that before Fauci wrote off the theory that the COVID-19 virus started in a Chinese laboratory, scientists informed him that the virus could have been engineered. Some of the same scientists, after speaking in a call with Fauci, came out against the lab theory. No animal source for the virus has been identified to date, and Chinese officials have released little information from the lab, which received funding from the agency Fauci directs.

“Fauci’s resignation will not prevent a full-throated investigation into the origins of the pandemic. He will be asked to testify under oath regarding any discussions he participated in concerning the lab leak,” Sen.