The COVID-19 pandemic not only took countless lives but also exposed how deeply rooted politics had become inside the government bureaucracies tasked with protecting public health, corrupting their ability to make decisions based on facts, evidence, and actual science. The people have demanded answers, not only for the politicized response of our health agencies, but also whether the virus came to be with the help of American tax dollars. 

From the very beginning of the pandemic, I have been determined to get to the bottom of these costly and dangerous decisions. After years of NIH obstruction, subpoena noncompliance, and FOIA avoidance, my investigation has revealed that our public health officials failed when the stakes were at their highest. 

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FAUCI ORDERED DELETION OF EMAILS RELEVANT TO COVID-19 ORIGINS, RAND PAUL ALLEGES

I have pressed Dr. Anthony Fauci, then-director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, to provide answers for his decisions before and during the pandemic. Through my investigation as chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, I have uncovered new emails in which Fauci instructs NIH employees to delete messages. Such an action is not only against federal law but is a clear demonstration of Fauci’s blatant disregard for congressional oversight and public accountability. 

What was it that Fauci wanted deleted? In an internal email, Fauci complained about a social media post of mine that criticized him for saying New York “did it correctly” with lockdowns and closures. I accurately noted that states such as Texas and Florida were performing better than New York regarding their COVID-19 death rates without lockdowns and closures.

Fauci called me “full of s***” in response to my post questioning this presentation of death rate data. Then he concluded the email discussion with an instruction to his colleague: “I do not want to engage any more with this nonsense … please delete this e-mail after you read it.”

This dismissiveness from Fauci is hardly surprising. Yet many Americans, myself included, trusted scientific discourse and rejected Fauci’s singular determination that he was “the science.” Unfortunately, his decisions had real-world consequences. 

When the science showed that children were at very low risk from the virus, the politicized guidance from health bureaucrats — in conjunction with left-wing teachers unions — was to keep schools closed anyway. Today, we can look back and clearly see these policies for what they were: complete nonsense.

When the data showed that locking down elderly people in nursing homes was leading to a higher death rate, the politicized guidance from our health bureaucrats was that restrictions must continue, only to make convenient exceptions and hedge their lockdown guidance for leftist and anti-Trump protests. But anti-lockdown protesters were arrested. This, too, was nonsense.

When the science demonstrated that natural immunity from a prior COVID-19 infection was a very effective shield against future infection, bureaucrats like Fauci nonetheless pushed vaccines, ignoring studies that proved their narrative wrong. They chose to force vaccination on groups with near-zero death rates and reject the protection provided by natural immunity, which should have been unthinkable. 

When the evidence showed complications such as myocarditis linked to COVID-19 vaccines, particularly among young people already at little risk from the virus, the politicized guidance was to push forward with the vaccine machine and downplay any adverse results linked to the vaccine. This guidance was not just inappropriate. It was dangerous in both precedent and outcome. 

When the evidence showed COVID-19 had all the hallmarks of a lab-made virus, the politicized answer was to deny, to imply that such claims were somehow racist, and to insist the virus had actually come from an animal wet market, which was only coincidentally near the Wuhan Institute of Virology. 

When the money trail showed that taxpayer dollars had likely funded coronavirus gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Fauci stood before the Senate and told us in no uncertain terms that we were incorrect, even though information continues to point to a likely lab leak origin. 

THE SINS OF HEALTH ‘EXPERTS’ GAVE US RFK JR.

Lives were lost and families were shattered. Families were forced to sit six feet apart at funerals, grieving their loved ones in isolation while being physically prevented from consoling each other with an embrace. A generation of American children is falling behind in reading and math because they were blocked from attending school. Trust in our public health institutions disintegrated. 

Those responsible must be held to account. No pardon or deleted email will change the suffering and deception the public experienced. No pardon or deleted email will protect Fauci’s legacy from the truth. No pardon or deleted email will erase this record of monumental failure.

Rand Paul is the junior United States senator from Kentucky.