The extraordinary appearance reopened one of Washington’s most politically divisive disputes: whether the pandemic began through natural transmission from animals or a laboratory-related incident in Wuhan, and whether US officials adequately scrutinised research conducted there with American funding.
Fauci, who led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and became a prominent face of the US government’s Covid-19 response during the pandemic, was subpoenaed to appear on Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on the virus’s origins.
Committee chair Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, has repeatedly accused Fauci of covering up evidence supporting the lab-leak theory tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
In his opening statement, Fauci accused Paul of having an “obsession” with seeing him charged, and argued that answering the committee’s questions could expose him to politically motivated prosecution.
“The sole reason [Paul] is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up ‘behind bars,’” Fauci said.