"There’s probably never been a government official caught more red-handed, lying to us," Paul told "Fox & Friends" hosts during his Monday appearance on the show. "He has proved the lie in his own words." (Related: Unearthed emails prove Fauci was aware of unnatural COVID-19 origins, WIV gain-of-function research.) He further slammed Fauci saying that at first, he acted as if the Biden administration's "face of COVID-19 response" had nothing to do with the research in Wuhan and they have not funded it. But investigations found the actual scientific papers and the grant number proving it came from his agency. In fact, a recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) shows the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) did receive funds from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). But it was not made clear that the funding contributed to the research Paul is pointing to, or that it had anything to do with the origins of COVID-19. However, Dr. William Schaffner, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, told NewsNation: "The NIH has for years and years not only provided funding for research that’s done within the United States but has collaborated and actually stimulated and catalyzed research in many other countries around the world." So, Fauci finally admitted to funding it 'but it's not gain-of-function. My experts up and down have looked at this and it's not gain-of-function.' We have contemporaneous documents, documents from February of 2020 in the height of the beginning of the pandemic, where he is saying privately 'We're suspicious that this virus could have come from the lab because they're doing gain-of-function research,'" Paul said in the interview. The email Fauci sent to then-Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Garrett Grisby, indicated that Fauci talked with "highly credible scientists," who, "were concerned about the fact that upon viewing the sequences of several isolates of the nCov there were mutations in the virus that would be most unusual to have evolved naturally in the bats and that there was a suspicion that this mutation was intentionally inserted. "Upon considerable discussion, some of the scientists felt more strongly about this possibility, but two others felt differently. They felt that it was entirely conceivable that this could have evolved naturally even though these mutations have never been seen in a bat virus before," Fauci wrote in the unearthed emails. "The reasons for each side of the argument are too complicated to bother you with." Then when speaking to the public, Fauci claimed "There's nothing to see here." And then in the "secret correspondences," he admitted it was a gain of function. Paul pointed out that Fauci actually admitted they funded it and that it gave them suspicion to the possibility this pandemic came from the lab and then lied in the hearing again.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. That's why I sent an official criminal referral to the DOJ. https://t.co/Y191SmMiIr
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 29, 2023