Rand Paul [Fauci hearing]: The COVID lockdown, however, could never have been inflicted without you aiding and abetting the crime. Children lost years of education. Small business built over a lifetime disappeared. Patients delayed cancer screening, and other medical care. Families were separated from dying relatives. Workers were ordered to accept a medical procedure, or lose their jobs. Worship assembly, employment, education, and travel, were restricted in the name of science. When you did not impose every restriction, you used your public authority to justify them.

Fauci: Given Senator Paul's obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently, his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary, aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, the only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, "behind bars". Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion. Therefore, although it pains me to do so, because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government, and my decades-long record of cooperating with congress, under the advise of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, to refrain from answering your questions.

Rand Paul: President Trump has done a ban, and we're glad that he did ban gain of function research, so we're better off than we were when we had an advocate serving as head of NAID, and advocate for gain of function research. There is still, though, a question whether the intelligence community is adhering to that order. There is a question of whether or not gain of function research is still ongoing.

Rand Paul: The chairman has denied your assertion of privilege [Fauci], and directed you to answer him. But you nonetheless refuse, and stand on privilege, despite the existence of the pardon. The committee will have to consider, after this hearing, what appropriate actions should be taken against you for the failure to testify after being directed to do so. It's against the law to obstruct an investigation of congress. There will be repercussions for your refusal to testify today.

Fauci is incredibly nervous. kek

Ron Johnson: I would want to know, to what extent were you [Fauci] involved in sabotaging Hydroxychloroquin, Ivermectin. Did you do that because you knew then only way you could get an emergency use authorization for these drugs, these experimental gene therapy, was if there was no effective treatment, you couldn't get the emergency use authorization? So is that why you helped sabotage these cheap, generic drugs, in favor of Remdesivir? Which, by the way, are you aware of the fact that nurses called it, 'Run, Death Is Near'?