Clock ticking for prosecution of Anthony Fauci before statute of limitations makes bringing charges impossible

Dr. Anthony Fauci.

In less than a week, the five-year statute of limitations will kick in making it impossible for Dr. Anthony Fauci to face charges for allegedly lying to Congress about the origin of COVID, and multiple members of Congress have been calling on the Justice Department to bring formal charges against the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director as the clock ticks down.

Perhaps loudest among those voices is Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who famously sparred with Fauci during a 2022 hearing on Capitol Hill. U.S. Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina has also been vocal in calling for Fauci to be prosecuted, issuing a statement last week calling on the Department of Justice to secure an indictment against him. May 11 is the day on which the statute of limitations expires. 

"Anthony Fauci looked Congress in the eye and lied under oath about funding research tied to a pandemic killing millions of people worldwide, which he then used as justification to shut down our country,” Mace said in the statement. “His adviser has been indicted. His agency's own deputy director admitted the truth on the record. There is no excuse for the DOJ to not act. The American people deserve accountability, and the clock is running out."

In the 2022 hearing, Paul questioned Fauci about whether gain-of-function research was being conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) at a lab in Wuhan, China, despite an order banning such research. Fauci insisted the NIH never funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan, the city where the first cases of COVID were reported in late 2019. Paul asked Fauci whether he wanted to retract earlier statements he made during the 2022 hearing. 

"Senator Paul, I have never lied before the Congress," Fauci responded, "and I do not retract that statement." Paul and Fauci then argued about the meaning of gain-of-function -- which refers to any genetic mutation in an organism or virus that confers a new or enhanced ability, including any artificial enhancements scientists may cause for research purposes. 

"I have been calling for accountability for years and now is the time to finally hold people responsible," Paul said in a recent post on X calling for charges to be brought against Fauci.

Though it's not legally related to potential criminal charges, many everyday Americans and lawmakers hold a particular animus against Fauci for his Draconian implementation of vaccine policies, which ended up coercing millions of American into taking the vaccine despite not wanting it.

One of his most notorious remarks amid the pandemic came during an interview in which he said, "When you make it difficult for people in their lives, they lose their ideological bulls**t and they get vaccinated." 

Fauci retired from his roles with the federal government in December 2022 at the age of 81. He was celebrated by the left and mainstream media as "America's Doctor." Below, watch a clip of Paul interrogating Fauci months before he retired as he came under increasing scrutiny.