Rand Paul on the lab leak 'deception'

"When I first heard about the debate [over the origins of COVID-19]…I assumed that the scientists were being honest with us," says Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.). But his mind changed after reading a May 2021 article self-published on Medium by former New York Times science journalist Nicholas Wade. "As I began looking at this, the evidence, I think, was very, very strong that it came from a lab."

Paul, who has a new book called Deception: The Great COVID Cover-Up, famously clashed with former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci in multiple Senate hearings over the question of whether his agency funded risky "gain-of-function" research in Wuhan, China, that Paul believes may have resulted in the creation of the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic. Gain-of-function research involves enhancing the transmissibility or deadliness of viruses in human tissue. Fauci denied ever funding such research, telling Paul in July 2021, "You do not know what you're talking about."

But Paul tells Reason that the evidence that Fauci was lying has been piling up since then.

"It's a felony to lie to Congress," says Paul. "It's punishable by up to five years in prison."

He referred the matter to Attorney General Merrick Garland for criminal prosecution but says he's received no reply.

"It is a huge cover-up [by] not just Anthony Fauci, but throughout government, eight different departments of government," says Paul. "The [National Institutes of Health] is more secretive at this point than the CIA."

Paul has introduced multiple bills and amendments to cut public funding for gain-of-function research, to reform how the federal government funds scientific research, and to prohibit government officials from meeting with social media companies for the purpose of censoring legal speech.

"If Twitter wants to censor me or YouTube wants to take my speech down because I say masks don't work, that is their prerogative," says Paul. "But I do think that a consistent libertarian position is telling the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], [President Joe] Biden's spokesmen…that they can't be meeting on a weekly basis with either overt or implied threats of, 'You need to do this or else.'"

Watch the full interview on Reason's YouTube channel.