A leading Republican is demanding the Pentagon explain why it tried to hide taxpayer money sent to China for risky virus research.
A new report from the Department of Defense shows the agency has lost track of millions of taxpayer dollars sent to America’s enemies.
Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) is now demanding that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin explain exactly what happened, according to correspondence exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com.
Paul says he is “deeply concerned” by the Pentagon report that found the department could not determine whether it sent money to China for pathogen research.
“It is unacceptable that the Department of Defense cannot account for the full extent of taxpayer funding it has spent on pandemic pathogen research in Chinese research laboratories,” Paul wrote to Austin.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has requested documents from the Pentagon about its use of taxpayer dollars to fund research into pathogens in China. Paul has been investigating the origins of COVID for years and was shocked by the Pentagon’s failure to track funding abroad
The Republican asked Sec. Austin to turn over files related to the Pentagon’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP), which funded Chinese research on pathogens similar to the coronavirus research conducted by the Wuhan Institute of Virology before the COVID pandemic.
The senator is heavily investigating the origins of COVID and former White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci for his role in the pandemic and the policies that accompanied it.
Now he is investigating the Pentagon’s role in using “American taxpayer dollars for risky virus research in China and other foreign countries.”
“This lack of oversight poses a significant gap in our national security and undermines public confidence in the DoD,” Paul said.
Earlier, the senator told DailyMail.com that Fauci still has 24/7 protection from the US Marshal, who pays him taxpayer money even though he is not a government employee.
“The only people who are likely to get the same level of security are the president, the vice president, maybe cabinet members and a few senior people in the House and Senate,” Paul told DailyMail.com.
Virologists working at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which received funding from the National Institute of Health (NIH) when Fauci led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
DailyMail.com recently saw Dr. Anthony Fauci walking around his neighborhood with a full, taxpayer-funded security detail
At least six U.S. Marshals agents were spotted walking along the trail with Fauci
Paul has also openly accused Fauci of covering up the origins of the virus.
The Republican has twice sent referrals to the Justice Department for Fauci’s prosecution, telling DailyMail.com that “he committed a crime by lying to Congress that he didn’t fund a profit and benefits investigation. He still says that.”
“It’s irritating that he’s still shouting about how great he is, when I think history should remember his philosophical position that gain-of-function research is worth the risk. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure history remembers that he was philosophically in favor of the research that I think caused millions of people to die from this lab leak,” Paul told DailyMail.com.
Last month, the Kentuckian questioned several leading doctors at a Senate hearing about the origins of COVID and the definition of gain-of-function research.
The hearing spiraled out of control as lawmakers and witnesses sparred over the positive implications of research into improving viruses to make them more effective.
And Paul said that if Republicans gain control of the Senate in November and he is given committee authority, his first action will be to subpoena those records.
“The most important information is the NIH discussion about what is and isn’t gain-of-function,” he told DailyMail.com. “They won’t give us that information.”
Fauci signs autographs outside ABC studios in New York with a member of his US Marshals team behind him
According to Paul, those documents will actually reveal whether Fauci lied to Congress about whether he oversaw the dangerous research method, something he previously denied to the Senate.
Still, the reputational damage to U.S. public health officials has already been done, he added.
“There are public health officials who appear to be more salesmen for Big Pharma than objective scientists, and that is still a problem,” Paul told DailyMail.com.
“It has created a lot of distrust, much more distrust than ever before in what the government is telling us,” he said.