Republican lawmakers are intensifying pressure on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to indict former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci for perjury by May 11, the date the window of the five-year statute of limitations on the potential charge closes.
In an April 29 X post, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., accused Fauci of lying to Congress, destroying federal records, and advising others to also take those actions.
I've said it from the beginning: lying to Congress is a felony. Destroying federal records is a felony. Advising others to destroy federal records is a felony. Fauci did all three. His adviser was just indicted. Fauci is next. The deadline to prosecute Fauci is May 11. The DOJ…
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) April 29, 2026
Paul’s post came the day after the DOJ announced it had indicted Fauci’s former senior adviser, Dr. David Morens, on federal charges of conspiring to conceal and falsify records from investigations into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, Zeale News previously reported. Morens faces up to 51 years in prison.
The push for Fauci’s indictment centers on a 2021 testimony he gave before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, in which he said the National Institutes of Health (NIH) “has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., also joined Paul’s call, arguing that federal records and congressional testimony later contradicted Fauci’s statement. Mace pointed to a 2023 Government Accountability Office report that the Wuhan Institute of Virology and Wuhan University received NIH funding, including for experiments involving bat coronaviruses. She also cited 2024 testimony from NIH Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak, who told lawmakers that U.S. funding supported research in Wuhan that met NIH’s definition of gain-of-function research.
Records show NIAID awarded EcoHealth Alliance $3.1 million, with roughly $750,000 sub-granted to the Wuhan lab, according to Mace.
“Anthony Fauci looked Congress in the eye and lied under oath about funding research tied to a pandemic killing millions of people worldwide, which he then used as justification to shut down our country,” Mace said. “His adviser has been indicted. His agency's own deputy director admitted the truth on the record. There is no excuse for the DOJ to not act. The American people deserve accountability, and the clock is running out.”
Mace also argued that any pardon issued by former President Joe Biden should be tested in court, saying Biden gave a “blanket autopen pardon to Fauci on his final day in office covering unspecified offenses dating back to 2014.”
Paul has referred Fauci to the DOJ multiple times, including in 2023 and in July 2025, questioning the validity of Biden’s preemptive pardon, according to his office.
In an April 28 interview with the New York Post, Paul said he believes Fauci committed three felonies.
“We think lying to Congress is one felony,” he said. “We also think that destroying federal records and advising others to destroy federal records is also a felony. So I think there’s opportunity there.”
He added, “There was a vast, both organized and unorganized conspiracy to cover up the fact that the US government was funding the research that led to the pandemic.”