GOP Promises to Hold Fauci ‘Accountable’ as He Prepares to Leave Post
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Congressional Republicans vowed Monday that they will continue to investigate Dr. Fauci’s conduct as the nation’s top infectious disease expert, who advised the Biden administration’s Covid-19 strategy and public communications, even after he leaves his post in the federal government.
“Dr. Fauci lost the trust of the American people when his guidance unnecessarily kept schools closed and businesses shut while obscuring questions about his knowledge on the origins of COVID. He owes the American people answers,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted. “@HouseGOP majority will hold him accountable.”
Fauci announced Monday that he would be resigning from his roles as chief medical adviser to President Biden and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, effective December. The 81-year-old doctor served in government for over 50 years. He noted that he will not be retiring but will “pursue the next chapter of my career.”
Throughout the pandemic, Fauci was accused of misleading the American people as to the risks, origin, and efficacy of mitigation measures for the Covid-19 virus.
He discouraged cloth mask use early on before switching his opinion completely and urging mask-wearing in the majority of indoor settings for over two years.
Fauci was an advocate of prolonged lockdowns, school closures, and masks for children, even amid a widely available vaccine, both of which critics claim subjected Americans to social isolation and students to learning loss.
“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,” Senator Rand Paul tweeted.
At many hearings, Paul grilled Fauci on his well-documented efforts to squash scientific dissent on the then-supposed consensus that the virus naturally emerged rather than escaped via a lab accident in Wuhan, China. The lab-leak theory has since been accepted by many mainstream outlets after they previously dismissed it as conspiracy. Before Congress, Fauci repeatedly dodged questions about whether the National Institutes of Health funded gain-of-function coronavirus research on bats at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“Retirement can’t shield Dr. Fauci from congressional oversight,” House Oversight and Reform Committee ranking member James Comer said in a statement.
“In January, a GOP Congress should hold Fauci fully accountable for his dishonesty, corruption, abuse of power, and multiple lies under oath,” Senator Ted Cruz tweeted. “Never in our nation’s history has one arrogant bureaucrat destroyed more people’s lives.”
Some Republicans suggested that Fauci stepped down in the summer so as to avoid being the subject of a GOP probe after the fall midterm elections, when the party is projected to recover a governing majority in the House.
“Dr. Fauci is conveniently resigning from his position in December before House Republicans have an opportunity to hold him accountable for destroying our country over these past three years. This guy is a coward, Representative Andy Biggs tweeted.
