President Joe Biden, in an extraordinary move, granted former federal health official Anthony Fauci a pre-emptive pardon. While Fauci faces criticism for all sorts of things — mostly pushing localities and institutions into overly strict lockdowns and unending mask mandates — he might have been in legal trouble because it looks like tried to cover up the origins of COVID-19, and his own agency’s involvement with the Chinese research on coronaviruses.

Specifically, Fauci, who ran the infectious-disease operation of the National Institutes of Health, could have faced prosecution for lying to Congress, which is a federal crime.

On May 11, 2021, Fauci was brought before the Senate Committee on Health Education Labor and Pensions, where Sen. Rand Paul, among others, questioned him. Paul said this:

“For years, Dr. Ralph Baric, a virologist in the U.S., has been collaborating with Dr. Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Virology Institute, sharing his discoveries about how to create super-viruses. This gain-of-function research has been funded by the NIH.”

Then Paul asked, “Dr. Fauci, do you still support funding of the NIH funding of the lab in Wuhan?”

Fauci replied, “Sen. Paul, with all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect that the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

It later was confirmed that the NIH gave a grant in 2014 to a non-profit called EcoHealth Alliance for the sake of genetically combining coronaviruses with other viruses. In the experiments, conducted at Wuhan Institute of Virology, scientists found that such combinations could make the viruses more contagious and more harmful.

This sort of alteration — genetically modifying viruses to make them more powerful — meets some definitions of “gain-of-function research” but not others. Fauci has argued that this doesn’t count as “gain-of-function research” by technical definitions. These Fauci-funded Wuhan coronavirus experiments do, however, meet the more colloquial uses of the term.

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Fauci also is entangled in questions regarding public-records laws. Fauci’s senior advisor deleted many records and seemingly bragged about learning tricks of how to avoid the Freedom of Information Act and “how to make emails disappear.” NIH’s general counsel also advised the FOIA office to cover up everything “having to do with EcoHealth Alliance/WIV.”

Without more evidence, it’s a stretch to think Fauci could be convicted of any federal crime, but apparently, the threat of prosecution was enough to make Fauci and Biden worried.