Sen. Rand Paul issued a subpoena compelling Dr. Anthony Fauci to testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee next month, escalating a years-long confrontation over whether the former top health official funded the research that triggered a global pandemic, and then misled Congress about it.
"Anthony Fauci will answer to the American people. 7/29 at 10 AM," Paul wrote in a June 28 post on X, setting the date for what could become the most consequential congressional hearing on pandemic accountability since COVID-19 first emerged in late 2019.
The Kentucky Republican, who chairs the committee, said the subpoena became necessary after Fauci backed out of a prior agreement to appear voluntarily. Paul framed the move as the culmination of an investigation that has gained new momentum under the Trump administration, which he said has turned over documents the Biden administration refused to release.
The subpoena marks the first Paul has issued as committee chairman, and it followed weeks of what Paul described as deliberate delay. As Breitbart reported, Fauci had initially agreed to testify voluntarily, then withdrew that commitment, prompting Paul to use compulsory power.
"Last week, Anthony Fauci notified us that he will not voluntarily testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, even though he had previously agreed to do so. Therefore, today we have issued a subpoena for him to publicly testify."
Paul issued those words on June 22, 2026, making clear that Fauci's only remaining option is to challenge the subpoena in court. "With this subpoena power, we will bring him in, unless he fights this in court," Paul said.
The timing of Fauci's withdrawal is notable. It came after former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified a several-hundred-page intelligence report on Fauci on her last day in office, as Just the News reported. That declassification appears to have changed Fauci's calculus about sitting before the committee voluntarily.
Appearing on Fox News's Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, Paul laid out the core of his case. He said the investigation, which has spanned several years, was stymied under the Biden administration but has accelerated since President Trump took office.
"The investigation of COVID origins has been going on for several years. The Biden administration's stubbornness wouldn't give us any of the documents. The Trump administration has been very cooperative; they've turned over virtually everything."
Paul did not detail every document now in the committee's hands, but he made a sweeping claim about the central question of gain-of-function research, the practice of engineering viruses to become more dangerous in order to study them.
"What we know now, beyond a reasonable doubt, is that Anthony Fauci did, indeed, fund gain-of-function research."
He described that research as involving viruses becoming "more lethal, more attachable to human cells, and more infectious." Fauci has previously denied that U.S.-funded research directly caused COVID-19, and unspecified federal health agencies have maintained that grant oversight procedures were followed. Those denials are now at the heart of the dispute Paul wants to litigate in public.
The New York Post reported that DNI files released by Gabbard included a whistleblower complaint alleging Fauci lied to Congress about NIH funding of gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison. The files also reportedly showed Fauci met with CIA officials weeks after denying NIH funding of Wuhan research and redirected focus away from the lab-leak theory.
The pattern Paul describes, if the documents support it, would represent a systematic effort to steer the public and the intelligence community away from the lab-origin hypothesis during the critical early months of the pandemic. The DOJ has already shown willingness to pursue criminal accountability in Fauci's orbit; a former Fauci adviser, David Morens, was indicted for allegedly destroying COVID-19 records.
One of Paul's most pointed claims involves the Central Intelligence Agency. He told Bartiromo that an internal CIA scientific commission voted 6 to 1 in favor of the conclusion that COVID-19 originated in a laboratory. He alleged that this position "later shifted under pressure," though he did not specify in his Fox News appearance who applied that pressure or through what mechanism.
"A scientific commission within the CIA voted 6 to 1 to say it came from the lab."
The CIA adjusted its official stance in 2025, assessing with low confidence that a research-related origin is more likely than a natural one, as Newsmax reported. Declassified documents released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence allegedly show that Fauci briefed intelligence officials and recommended experts who supported the natural-origin theory, contradicting his 2024 congressional testimony. Whistleblowers reportedly testified that intelligence analysts who challenged the natural-origin theory faced retaliation and career consequences.
Paul called the broader effort "misdirection" and "a conspiracy." Those are strong words, and they remain his characterization. But the declassified material, now in the committee's possession, will either substantiate or undermine that framing when Fauci sits before the panel.
Former DNI Gabbard put her own marker down when she accused Fauci and other officials of "manipulating intelligence" and "lying to Congress," adding: "The American people deserve transparency, truth, and accountability."
Paul also raised the question of whether former President Biden's last-minute pardon of Fauci effectively shields him from consequences. Paul characterized it as a "ten-year pardon on nonspecific crimes" issued "in his final hours in office." He suggested the pardon's legality "could be challenged in court," though he did not cite a specific legal theory or precedent.
The concept of preemptive pardons for officials facing legal exposure has drawn scrutiny from both parties. Paul indicated he plans to question Fauci about whether he sought the pardon himself, what specific crimes it was meant to cover, and whether he ever discussed it directly with Biden.
"There will be questions about did he seek the pardon, what specific crimes did he seek, did he ever meet with President Biden."
A pardon can extinguish criminal liability, but it cannot prevent congressional testimony. And Paul has made clear he intends to use the hearing not just for fact-finding but for the historical record.
Paul's language on Fox News left little ambiguity about his view of what the evidence shows and what the hearing is meant to accomplish. He alleged that Fauci privately acknowledged early in 2020 that the virus likely did not originate at a Wuhan wet market, a claim Paul did not source to a specific document during the interview.
"He has not really gotten his just desserts on this, and we want to make sure that the American public and that history records that he was involved with funding this dangerous research that led to a pandemic that killed 15 million people; there needs to be repercussions."
Paul's figure of 15 million deaths exceeds the World Health Organization's tally of more than 7 million worldwide. The Washington Examiner noted that WHO data also puts U.S. deaths at more than 1.2 million. Paul did not explain the discrepancy during his appearance, and neither the article nor the WHO data reconciles the two numbers.
Fauci's defenders have long argued that gain-of-function research is standard scientific practice and that no direct causal link between U.S.-funded research and the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been established. Federal health agencies have maintained that grant oversight procedures were followed. But the drip of declassified documents, whistleblower complaints, and now a formal subpoena has shifted the terrain considerably.
The indictment of Morens for allegedly hiding COVID-19 origin records shows that the institutional wall around Fauci's former operation is not holding. Whether Fauci himself faces legal jeopardy beyond the pardon's reach remains an open question. But he will face questions, under subpoena, in public, on the record.
Paul has spent years pressing this case. He has been accused of grandstanding. He has been told the science was settled. He was told the lab-leak theory was misinformation. Now he has the gavel, the documents, and the subpoena. On July 29, the American public will get to watch Fauci answer, or refuse to.
When officials who spent years demanding the public's trust refuse to sit in a chair and answer questions, the trust problem answers itself.
