Sen. Rand Paul, who has publicly criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci over the origins of COVID-19 and his advocacy of lockdowns and mandates, goes even further in a new book, blaming Dr. Fauci for funding the creation of the virus with U.S. dollars and lying about it to Congress.

In interviews about the new book, Mr. Paul said he believes Dr. Fauci is a traitor who helped create the deadly pandemic and “without question” belongs in jail.

It’s a dramatic assessment. But Mr. Paul, a Kentucky Republican serving his third term in the Senate, makes the case in the pages of “Deception: The Great Covid Cover Up” that Dr. Fauci is at least partly to blame for the worldwide pandemic that, according to the Centers for Disease Control, killed more than a million people in the U.S.

The book goes behind the scenes to investigate efforts to suppress the truth about the origins of the virus and the missteps that led to lockdowns and mandates that have largely been denounced by now.

Dr. Fauci was at the center of it all, Mr. Paul writes.

Mr. Paul was among the first in Congress to challenge the vaunted director of the National Institutes of Health’s Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, not only over his recommendations favoring lockdowns and vaccine mandates but also on the origins of the virus.

Dr. Fauci, who served as chief medical adviser to the president until December 2022, has always vigorously fought back against Mr. Paul’s criticism and defended his handling of the pandemic.

Mr. Paul’s book makes the case that Dr. Fauci skirted federal government safety guidelines to provide funding to the Wuhan lab that many believe created the COVID-19 virus and infected lab workers who spread it to the general population.

Then, Mr. Paul writes, Dr. Fauci orchestrated an elaborate coverup of his involvement by getting infectious disease experts to abandon their theories about a lab leak and instead publicly embrace the idea that the virus evolved from animals.

“He knew that his reputation and the billion-dollar ‘business of science’ depended on distancing himself, the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, from any research in Wuhan,” Mr. Paul wrote.

Dr. Fauci has repeatedly denied funding the creation of the virus and said Mr. Paul’s effort to pin it on him is “egregiously incorrect.”  He has accused Mr. Paul of distorting information about him and fueling threats against him and his family. He’s also criticized Mr. Paul for promoting his opposition to him in fundraising emails.

“You are making a catastrophic epidemic for your political gain,” Dr. Fauci told Mr. Paul at a 2022 hearing.

Mr. Paul insists Dr. Fauci has it backward.

The opening of the book explains the efforts made by Dr. Fauci to suppress evidence the virus originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, and did not come from animals sold in nearby wet markets.

Mr. Paul chronicles the efforts to shape that narrative, including Dr. Fauci’s move to exclude CDC Director Robert Redfield from important meetings about the emerging virus.

Dr. Redfield was among those who early on in the pandemic said he was concerned the virus was created and leaked from China’s Wuhan Institute of Technology.

Dr. Redfield also tangled with Dr. Fauci earlier in their careers when Dr. Redfield took the side of critics worried that gain-of-function research would create new and deadly pathogens not found in nature that would come with deadly risks.

Dr. Redfield’s exclusion by Dr. Fauci was part of a pattern of deception, according to the book.

“Americans were deliberately kept ignorant of the raging debate in the scientific community over gain-of-function research,” Mr. Paul wrote. “Fauci was deeply invested in having people believe there was overwhelming scientific consensus concerning the great value of gain-of-function research as a method to identify threats and prevent future pandemics.”

In this case, the research killed millions worldwide, Mr. Paul believes.

Dr. Fauci denies greenlighting or funding gain-of-function research but Dr. Paul wrote that government emails released under court order show Dr. Fauci tried to hide his involvement. In fact, NIH had been funding coronavirus gain-of-function research with his approval but without a review by a special pandemic committee empaneled to oversee such dangerous research.

Mr. Paul, whose charged exchanges with Dr. Fauci at Senate committee hearings often went viral, recalls in the book cross-examining him at one of those hearings about his decision to approve of gain-of-function research despite its deadly risks.

“He argued that his experts all informed him that the research was not gain-of-function or dangerous,” Mr. Paul wrote.

He believes Dr. Fauci lied.

“One wonders how he was informed of this opinion since the research in question had never been examined by the very committee expressly set up to evaluate the risk of creating pandemic viruses,” Mr. Paul wrote.

The book dedicates a chapter to making the case for the lab leak theory, which is now largely embraced by the scientific community and even the Biden Administration, which determined the virus most likely came from a lab leak.

The U.S. has suspended all funding for the Wuhan Institute of Technology after concluding it was not compliant with federal regulations.

Mr. Paul writes of his effort in the Senate to combat the government’s handling of the pandemic on other fronts.

He battled lawmakers against the massive COVID-19 aid spending bills that have contributed to today’s high inflation and interest rates, not to mention billions in spending fraud.

He quoted coverage in The Washington Times of the 5,593-page, $2.3 trillion COVID-19 relief legislation passed by Congress in December 2020.

“This is insane,” he told The Times. “They are ruining the country” with these fiscally irresponsible bailouts. “The majority of Republicans are now no different than socialist Democrats when it comes to debt.”

He also chronicles his public battles with Dr. Fauci over naturally acquired immunity, which he said Dr. Fauci never acknowledged as he pushed for vaccines, vaccine boosters, social distancing, masks, and, at one point, double masking.

Mr. Paul, who is a practicing ophthalmologist, was among a handful of lawmakers who did not wear a face covering or mask in the Senate during the pandemic. He cited the natural immunity he acquired after contracting the virus in March 2020.

Masks are theater, Mr. Paul told Dr. Fauci at a heated Senate hearing in March 2021, and people who have already experienced COVID-19 don’t need them.

“If you already have immunity you are wearing a mask to give comfort to others. You are not wearing a mask because of any science,” Mr. Paul said.

Dr. Fauci said he disagreed, citing “variants now circulating.”

Mr. Paul concluded Dr. Fauci’s opinion was both pessimistic and wrong.

“What we would find out over time is that the vaccines worked less well against each subsequent variant but that prior infection had a new perfect record of preventing hospitalization or death from a subsequent COVID infection.”

In an interview on Trinity Broadcast Network, Mr. Paul said the government’s control over society during the pandemic partly backfired because people eventually made their own assessments and decisions about the dangers of the virus.

He cited current statistics indicating COVID-19 vaccination rates for children younger than 4, who are among the least likely to get sick, are as low as 3% in some states.

“It’s a conceit of governments, the idea that we’re smarter than you. It’s an elitist concept, but it is also something accepted by a lot of people up here in Washington who say, let’s just ask the experts,” Mr. Paul said. “And really, I’m the opposite. I think people are much smarter than you give them credit for.”

For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.

• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.