Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., condemned a British doctor's 2020 Slack message to other prominent virologists regarding the origins of the coronavirus released in connection with a House Oversight Committee hearing last week, saying it is another piece of evidence that public coronavirus narratives were based on business and money, rather than true science.
"This was never about science. This was about the business of science. It was about the money," Paul, who has sparred with Dr, Anthony Fauci in several hearings,, fumed Monday on "The Ingraham Angle."
"Follow the money trail, and you see millions of dollars exchanging hands in the first few months of 2020 to the people who came out and said 'nothing to see here couldn't have happened in the lab'."
The missive from Dr. Andrew Rambaut suggested top scientists dismissed the Wuhan lab leak theory over political concerns, as some Republicans have alleged the messaging was meant to adhere to or mimic the company line from Dr. Fauci, then leading the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
"Given the s--- show that would happen if anyone serious accused the Chinese of even accidental release, my feeling is we should say that given there is no evidence of a specifically engineered virus, we cannot possibly distinguish between natural evolution and escape so we are content with ascribing it to natural process," Rambaut wrote in a Slack message to Drs. Kristian Andersen, Edward Holmes and Robert Garry, per a committee report.
The committee report alleged the paper was written at Fauci's behest to downplay the lab leak hypothesis and undermine the credibility of its critics, according to previous reporting by Fox News Digital. Andersen and Garry denied allegations of influence from Fauci or his then-boss former NIH Director Francis Collins.
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Paul – who once asked Fauci if he wanted to revise previous testimony about NIH involvement in gain-of-function research, "knowing that it is a crime to lie to Congress," – told "The Ingraham Angle" there has likely never been a cover-up in the history of American politics wherein it "was so completely documented that they were lying to us."
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Describing the testimony and report from the Oversight hearing, Paul said those physicians who the public counts on as purported experts were expressing one thing in public and another in private.
"[T]he one lead virologist who's saying it's all kooky and conspiracy theory to say it came to the lab -- He's saying in private, this is no conspiracy theory. This is not a fringe theory. In all likelihood, it could have come from the lab -- But they're in public, they print an article that Anthony Fauci commissions," he said.
"None of them believe that they knew with certainty that it wasn't, but they thought it would harm the business of science and would harm our relations with China if it became known that this came from a lab in China."
Paul also reacted to a massive blaze that heavily damaged his main Senate office in Kentucky.
The fire consumed a portion of a block in downtown Bowling Green – in the western part of the state – and the senator noted there was added concern that the blaze could jump a small alley and torch a historic courthouse.
Host Laura Ingraham noted Paul has been subjected to a handful of serious attacks, including from a neighbor who severely damaged his ribs forced the partial removal of a lung, saying nothing is yet off the table in terms of a source.
"They haven't told us how the fire started or what they believe started the fire yet. We've turned over our video footage. We have a lot of video footage for our own safety of who comes and goes at all hours in the building to try to make sure that nothing untoward does happen," Paul said.
Fox News' Andrew Miller contributed to this report.
