Source: Children’s Health Defense

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) called on Dr. Anthony Fauci to testify before the U.S. Congress after Paul released several emails from 2020 that show Fauci instructing colleagues to delete messages after reading them.

The email directives, which may violate federal law, contradict Fauci’s congressional testimony last year, when he repeatedly denied deleting official records or engaging in “attempts to obstruct the Freedom of Information Act and the release of public documents.”

Paul published the emails on Wednesday in a series of X posts.

He also posted a copy of a letter he sent to Fauci on Tuesday, asking Fauci to turn over documents and other records and to state his availability to testify before Congress this year.

🚨BREAKING: Newly released emails show Fauci directed colleagues to “delete this after you read it”—dating back to Feb. 2020.

He denied it under oath. These documents are now public, and Fauci will finally testify before Chairman Rand Paul. pic.twitter.com/kHrUDjfRXI

— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) September 10, 2025

The emails show that Fauci, who directed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) from 1984 to 2022, asked colleagues on at least two occasions to delete messages, a possible violation of federal records laws.

The emails also disclose Fauci’s discussions with key public health figures about how to “get ahead of the science and the narrative” during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The emails exchanged ideas on how to promote the “zoonotic” — or natural origin — theory of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Paul released the emails as part of a congressional investigation into the origins of COVID-19 launched last year.

In his letter, Paul wrote he has “reason to believe” Fauci “may be in possession of additional records” related to the investigation.

Paul said the records are “necessary … to fully understand the federal government’s actions to identify the origins of COVID-19, and the extent to which taxpayer dollars were used to conduct risky virological research.”

Fauci has until Sept. 23 to provide emails, text messages and other communications he sent or received between 2018 and 2023 relating to COVID-19 or other public health topics, or controversial gain-of-function research and laboratories in the U.S. and China where such research allegedly took place.

The letter also asks Fauci to state his availability to testify before Congress on Oct. 28-30, Nov. 4-6, Nov. 18-20, Dec. 2-4 or Dec. 9-11.

‘There’s zero wriggle room for Fauci this time’

Paul has long been a critic of Fauci.

In 2021 and 2023, he submitted criminal referrals against Fauci to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), accusing Fauci of perjury — a federal offense carrying a prison sentence of up to five years.

In January, former President Joe Biden preemptively pardoned Fauci in the final minutes of his administration. The pardon, retroactive to 2014, addresses “any offenses” Fauci committed during this period in any of his official capacities.

However, the pardon may not shield Fauci from all potential legal threats — particularly congressional inquiries, where he faces the risk of perjury or being found in contempt if he misrepresents facts or contradicts prior testimony, The Associated Press reported.

Paul has continued to pursue Fauci as part of his investigation, suggesting in May and July that he planned to subpoena Fauci to testify under oath.

Journalist Paul D. Thacker, a former U.S. Senate investigator, said Fauci still faces a legal risk from his forthcoming testimony.

“Paul caught Fauci lying under oath before, but there’s zero wriggle room for Fauci this time. Only the most deranged Fauci fan can defend this,” Thacker said.

Attorney Greg Glaser said if Fauci doesn’t comply with Paul’s request, Paul can “initiate proceedings to seize Fauci’s devices and conduct a law enforcement audit.” Glaser said:

“[Paul] would first pursue enforcement through the full chamber by a motion to hold Fauci in contempt. Upon Senate vote and passage, the matter would be referred to the DOJ for criminal prosecution and a court order to authorize U.S. Marshals to seize Fauci’s devices and documents for forensic examination.”

Paul’s office did not respond to The Defender’s request for comment by press time.

Fauci’s cover-up ‘began while the virus was barely on America’s radar’

According to Paul, Fauci’s efforts to cover up the origins of SARS-CoV-2 “began while the virus was barely on America’s radar.”

Paul cited a Feb. 2, 2020, email Fauci sent to Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., then-director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), regarding ideas Collins shared with Jeremy Farrar, Ph.D., on how to promote the zoonotic theory. Farrar, who was leading the Wellcome Trust at the time, was the architect of several COVID-19 pandemic-era policies.

Farrar told Collins, Fauci and World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in the Feb. 2, 2020, email that efforts to promote the zoonotic theory were best addressed “under the umbrella of WHO.”

Farrar later became the WHO’s chief scientist and is now its assistant director-general for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and Control.

Fauci replied to Collins, writing, “Please delete this e-mail after you read it.”

The coverup began while the virus was barely on America’s radar. Just one day after the Feb. 1, 2020 Proximal Origins call, Fauci, Francis Collins, and Jeremy Farrar plotted how to “get ahead of the science and the narrative” under WHO.

Fauci ended with: “Please delete this… pic.twitter.com/lAVuPB8mZJ

— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) September 10, 2025

Paul said the emails were sent one day after the Feb. 1, 2020, “Proximal Origins call.” Fauci, Collins, Farrar and key virologists, including several of the co-authors of the now-infamous “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2” paper, participated in the teleconference call.

The paper, which promoted the natural origin of COVID-19, was published in Nature Medicine in March 2020 and became one of that year’s most-cited scientific papers.

Although several of the co-authors of “Proximal Origin” expressed doubts that SARS-CoV-2 developed naturally, Fauci sought to suppress such concerns during the call. The U.S. government, the scientific community and the media subsequently used “Proximal Origin” to discredit proponents of the “lab-leak theory.”

The Trump administration is investigating whether the authors and publishers of “Proximal Origin” allowed Fauci and others to influence the paper’s conclusions in exchange for federal funding.

In July, Paul said he was working with FBI Director Kash Patel “to investigate Fauci malfeasance in office” and to examine “the vast COVID coverup” involving the virus’s origins and federal funding of gain-of-function research.

Gain-of-function research increases the transmissibility, or virulence, of viruses. Such research, often used in vaccine development, was performed at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, prompting fears that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was developed there.

‘Another layer of the Fauci COVID Coverup’

Paul also released an email dated July 20, 2020, between Fauci and Greg Folkers, then-chief of staff of Fauci’s NIAID office.

In the email, Folkers forwarded to Fauci a post Paul made on Twitter — now known as X — suggesting New York had a higher per capita death rate than states like Florida and Texas, which had relaxed their COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

Freshly released emails expose another layer of the Fauci COVID Coverup. In April 2020, his staff flagged my post on NYC’s soaring death rate.

Fauci’s reply?

Call me “full of s..t,” spin the numbers, and order your staff to “delete this after you read it.” He knew the… pic.twitter.com/cGvFn4OzX3

— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) September 10, 2025

In response, Fauci wrote that Paul is “full of s..t” and told Folkers he did not want to “engage any more with this nonsense.” He asked Folkers to “please delete this e-mail after you read it.”

Paul posted on X that the email exposes “another layer of the Fauci COVID Coverup” and suggests Fauci “knew the reckoning was eventually coming.”

Paul requests Fauci’s communications on gain-of-function research

In 2023, Paul asked the DOJ to investigate Fauci for allegedly committing perjury during a U.S. congressional hearing in 2021, when Fauci testified that COVID-19 did not originate in a Chinese lab.

“I don’t think there’s ever been a clearer case of perjury in the history of government testimony, and I don’t say that lightly,” Paul told Fox News at the time.

During a closed-door interview before the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic last year, Fauci responded more than 100 times that he “did not recall” crucial COVID-19 information or conversations.

He also said the NIH did not fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan laboratory.

Paul later said Fauci’s responses showed that he and the NIH — NIAID’s parent agency — are “more secretive than the CIA.”

Last year, the House also subpoenaed Dr. David Morens, former senior adviser to Fauci. Morens was accused of attempting to bypass federal recordkeeping laws by engaging in conversations about COVID-19 origins on his private email account.

This included communications with Peter Daszak, Ph.D., former president of EcoHealth Alliance, an organization that collaborated with researchers at the Wuhan lab to propose Project DEFUSE to the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 2018.

Although the proposal was rejected, it described the creation of coronaviruses with features similar to those of SARS-CoV-2 that enhanced their infectivity.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services suspended all funding for EcoHealth Alliance after finding the organization had failed to properly monitor risky coronavirus experiments.

In his letter to Fauci earlier this week, Paul requested copies of all communications Fauci had with Daszak, the EcoHealth Alliance, the Wuhan lab and the Wellcome Trust, as well as all communications related to topics such as the “Proximal Origin” paper, gain-of-function research and the DEFUSE proposal.

Paul proposes tighter oversight of gain-of-function research

Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard Ebright, Ph.D., a critic of gain-of-function research, said Paul’s disclosures “strengthen the case that Fauci, Collins, and their assistants were running a literal RICO from the NIAID Office of Director and the NIH Office of Director in the decade from 2014 to 2023.”

RICO refers to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, under which suspects may face federal criminal charges.

Ebright said:

“The evidence shows that they misfeasantly violated federal policies on gain-of-function and enhanced potential pandemic pathogen research and that, to cover up their misfeasance and its role in causing COVID-19, they committed criminal conspiracy to defraud, fraud, destruction of federal records, obstruction, misuse of federal funds and perjury.”

In May, President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending U.S. federal funding of “dangerous gain-of-function research” in China, Iran and other countries. Trump’s executive order also paused federally funded gain-of-function research in the U.S. for 120 days, during which a new policy for such research will be developed.

In June, the NIH shut down a research center Fauci established. It also announced that it was ending gain-of-function research and suspending the grants that funded the research.

In March, Paul introduced the Risky Research Review Act, which would “codify permanent independent oversight” of taxpayer-funded gain-of-function research.

In February, Paul introduced the NIH Reform Act, which would overhaul NIAID and “increase congressional oversight on the agency’s leadership.”

Related articles in The Defender

• Rand Paul Suggests Fauci May Be Forced to Testify Under Oath
• Biden Grants Fauci a ‘Preemptive Pardon.’ Could He Still Face Legal Challenges?
• ‘I Don’t Recall’: Fauci Unable to Answer Key Questions in Pandemic Probe
• Rand Paul Accuses Fauci of Perjury, Calls for DOJ Investigation
• NIH Shuts Down Research Center Founded by Fauci, as DOJ Scrutinizes Key Researchers