Republicans vow to investigate Fauci

Congressional Republicans are already making big plans if they win back control of the House or Senate in the November mid-term elections.

They are eagerly floating the idea of investigating Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Biden administration’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

“One way or another, if we are in the majority, we will subpoena his records and he will testify in the Senate under oath,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. said in a report by The Hill.

Paul is in line to become the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, should Republicans win the majority. The panel’s current ranking member, Sen. Richard Burr, R-NC, is retiring.

Launching an investigation into how President Joe Biden’s administration and Fauci handled the pandemic is not a new idea. Republicans have not been shy about launching probes into the Coronavirus response, focusing on where it originated and whether the federal government (and by extension, Fauci) helped fund the controversial research that might have played

a role in how the virus got created.

The investigations have not gained much momentum, however and that could be partly because the Republicans are in the minority. But with a majority, they would have the authority to subpoena the administration and force it to hand over documents.

“If we win in November, if I’m chairman of a committee, if I have subpoena power, we’ll go after every one of (Fauci’s) records,” Paul said in The Hill report.

A hard look needs to be taken at the entirety of the nation’s response to the pandemic across the Donald Trump administration, as well as the Biden administration and refrain from the partisan finger-pointing.

Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public

Health Association said if a hearing is to be had, it must be a credible one and it must have purpose. He’s been among health advocates pushing for an independent commission to be formed to examine the pandemic response. This commission would be modeled on the 9/11 Commission.

If the Republicans gain the majority, will they ensure a fair investigation, which looks at the response across both administrations? Or is this a way for them to further villainize Fauci? After all, he is a career government official that’s become a political lightning rod.