Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has accused Dr. Anthony Fauci of lying to Congress, after his assertions were used to censor Americans.
The senator clarified in a July 29 tweet that he referred former NIAID Director Dr. Fauci to the Justice Department for criminal charges because of Fauci’s dishonest testimony regarding US funding of Chinese gain-of-function research for coronaviruses. The U.S. government and Big Tech companies used the information Fauci and other officials provided to censor Americans’ voices attempting to engage in the COVID-19 debate.
“The whole purpose of the First Amendment is to protect controversial speech, to protect speech about policy debates, speech that runs contrary to the government’s narrative,” said MRC Free Speech America VP Dan Schneider.
Paul reacted to a July 29 tweet from RealClearPolitics White House Correspondent Philip Wegmann, who tweeted quotes from Fauci doubling down on his previous congressional testimony. Paul asked, “Do you still claim NIH never funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan?” Fauci replied, per Wegmann, “I’ve never lied before Congress.” Fauci claimed that making animal viruses more transmissible is not gain-of-function research, even accusing his questioner, “Sen. Paul, you don’t know what you are talking about.”
Wegmann provided a screenshot of a February 2020 email from Fauci to HHS and NIH officials. The email showed Fauci admitting knowledge of Wuhan “gain-of-function experiments to determine the molecular mechanisms associated with bat viruses adapting to human infection.” Furthermore, Fauci noted, the “outbreak originated in Wuhan,” and acknowledged debate among experts about the virus’s potentially man-made origins. This occurred before he denied that National Institutes of Health (NIH) were involved in funding any gain-of-function research despite funding to Wuhan.
Paul didn’t mince words. “This directly contradicts everything he said in committee hearing to me, denying absolutely that they funded any gain of function, and it’s absolutely a lie,” he tweeted. “That’s why I sent an official criminal referral to the DOJ.”
While the senator did not specifically mention censorship, Fauci’s assertions about the origins of COVID-19 were among the official pronouncements used to justify censoring Americans online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now it appears the censorship was founded on false information.
Sen. Paul was himself censored by YouTube for contradicting Fauci’s opinion on the effectiveness of masking and MRC’s own MRCTV was censored by TikTok for calling attention to Fauci’s attempts to insult Paul during a hearing, noting that “he seems to have perjured himself again.” MRC Free Speech America found over 800 cases of COVID-19 related censorship recorded in its unique CensorTrack database as of February 2022.
Big Tech also censored users for commenting on Fauci’s emails that appeared to show Fauci blatantly saying one thing in private and another in public. Climate Change Dispatch was temporarily suspended from Twitter after posting an article about Fauci’s emails with the caption “It Turns Out Dr. Fauci Also Knew Masks Weren’t Effective Against COVID-19,” according to screenshots. Meanwhile, MRCTV’s “Reality Check” was fact-checked on Facebook for talking about Fauci’s emails.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech and government agencies be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called “misinformation” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.