WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci on Monday survived a five-year legal deadline to face criminal charges for allegedly lying to Congress about funding risky research in Wuhan, China — but he isn’t out of the woods, The Post has learned.
Fauci testified to a Senate committee on May 11, 2021, that he did not fund “gain of function” research that genetically altered coronaviruses in the same city where the COVID-19 pandemic started — as he tried to tamp down the now-dominant “lab leak” theory. Evidence later proved he did.
The country’s former top infectious disease official still could face other potential charges for lesser-known contested testimony, or for alleged conduct stretching closer to the present day, such as for conspiracy, insiders said, even though his best-known alleged crime went uncharged.
Those potential cases aren’t necessarily as clean-cut for public consumption as the lab-funding denial, but could still give the controversial doctor a day in court. Moreover, a federal prosecution would put to the legal test former President Joe Biden’s pardon of the once-famed doc that was signed by autopen.
“Accountability for pandemic-era misconduct is non-negotiable,” a Trump administration official told The Post.
“This administration is aggressively exploring every legal avenue to hold every possible individual, entity, organization, and government official accountable for COVID-era wrongdoing.”
Pressure to prosecute Fauci intensified last month when the famous doctor’s former senior adviser David Morens was indicted for allegedly breaking the law to conceal the origins of COVID-19.
Morens faces one count of conspiracy, two counts of destruction, alteration, or falsification of records and two counts of concealment, removal, or mutilation of records.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), to whom Fauci allegedly lied about financing Wuhan Institute of Virology experiments that modified at least three coronaviruses distinct from COVID-19, tweeted repeatedly about the deadline in the past week.
Paul referred Fauci three times to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution and garnered significant social media attention and frustration from anti-Fauci public figures who said he was escaping justice.
“Whether the DOJ decides to charge Fauci or not, I’m not letting up,” Paul tweeted Monday. “In fact, later this week I’m holding a hearing with a whistleblower. Maybe the American people will finally get the answers they’ve been looking for.”
One issue complicating Fauci’s possible prosecution is the fact that Biden on Jan. 19, 2025, granted him a pardon for offenses spanning the preceding 10 years.
President Trump in December declared the pardon, and others signed by autopen, null and void, but the Justice Department has not tested that assertion, which hinges on an argument that Biden was so mentally diminished that he could not have authorized it.
The final period during which Fauci could have been charged for his testimony to Paul featured a leadership shakeup at the Justice Department, with Trump firing Pam Bondi as attorney general and replacing her with acting attorney general Todd Blanche on April 2.
It’s unclear how that shuffle may have impacted the analysis of Fauci’s liability.
While critics of the non-prosecution grumble that Blanche didn’t bring a case by the deadline, one source said that within the administration, Fauci isn’t viewed as a top target of Trump, whose political adversaries have seen indictments over the past year for alleged crimes.
Some within the administration see Fauci as less culpable than his former superior, Dr. Francis Collins, who was director of the National Institutes of Health, and Dr. Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, who subcontracted $750,000 from Fauci’s agency to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Justin Goodman, a vice president at the White Coat Waste Project, which clashed with Fauci over allegedly inhumane experimentation on beagles, told The Post he believes the doctor could face federal charges for allegedly lying to Congress about his use of his personal email.
“There’s still hope for prosecuting Fauci. While the five year statute has run out on his gain of function lies, he also could be charged for lying to Congress in 2024 about not using his personal email for NIH business,” Goodman said.
“White Coat Waste obtained emails through the Freedom of Information Act proving that he told a Washington Post reporter covering the beaglegate scandal to get his personal Gmail address to discuss [the topic]. The five-year statute for lying to Congress in 2024 would end in 2029.”
Goodman said that “at the federal and state level, there are still opportunities to hold him criminally accountable for the COVID coverup,” and that state officials also could have opportunities to charge Fauci for his remarks to them over the years.
State offenses are not covered by federal pardons.
“There are other opportunities. We just need people who have the political will to pursue them to take the reins,” Goodman said.
The Post requested comment from a number previously associated with Fauci, but received no response.
