Almost immediately after his Monday hearing, GOP members of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic raised calls for possible criminal referrals against the veteran government scientist.
What they’re saying:
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“We are going to take this further,” subcommittee Chair Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) said in an interview just hours after the hearing. “As far as any criminal liability, I think there’s a case to be made.”
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“I’m not a lawyer to tell you which subset of U.S. code, but I can tell you from a moral standpoint, it’s easy to say that he was not faithfully executing the duties of his office when it came to what’s best for the American people,” Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) told The Hill.
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Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) said Fauci’s testimony was “incriminating,” arguing that holding people like Fauci accountable is key to rebuilding trust in public health.
Wenstrup has requested Fauci’s private emails and cellphone records related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, EcoHealth and the origins of the coronavirus. Republicans have not yet threatened a subpoena, but Wenstrup gave Fauci a deadline of June 12 for a written response.
As far as what the criminal referrals against Fauci would be for, Republicans have yet to specify. Democrats have been quick to decry these calls.
“The effort to smear and vilify Dr. Fauci parallels their effort to smear and impeach Joe Biden. Both of them were complete failures, because there’s no evidence behind any of it, but it does reflect their new style of political character assassination,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, said following Fauci’s hearing.
Democrats have further criticized these pursuits as having split from the committee’s goal of finding the origins of COVID and preparing for future pandemics.
“I think that the whole year and a half of the committee has focused kind of on witch hunts,” Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) told The Hill. “I think we actually should spend more of our time trying to understand what we did well during the pandemic, what we didn’t do well, and then really trying to prepare for … the next pandemic.”
