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Republican Senator To Introduce The ‘FAUCI Act’ After Fiery Senate Hearing

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


It has been a tough week for Dr. Anthony Fauci and it is continuing as one Republican senator plans to introduce a new law named after him.

The “Fauci Act,” as it is being called, is being introduced by Republican Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall who wants to capitalize on a hot-mic moment Dr. Fauci had this week, The New York Post reported.

The bill, formally titled the Financial Accountability for Uniquely Compensated Individuals (FAUCI) Act, would also require the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) to publish a list of government officials whose financial disclosures are not publicly available, according to multiple outlets. 

Marshall clashed with the White House chief medical adviser during a Senate hearing Tuesday after the senator asked Fauci: “Would you be willing to submit to Congress and the public a financial disclosure that includes your past and current investments?”

“My financial disclosure is public knowledge and has been so for the last 37 years or so,” the doctor, who called Marshall “so misinformed, it’s extraordinary,” said.

“We cannot find them. Our office cannot find them. Where would they be if they are public knowledge?” the senator said.

“It is totally accessible to you if you want it,” the doctor said.

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“For the public? Is it accessible to the public?” the senator said.

“To the public, to the public!” Dr. Fauci said.

“Great, we look forward to reviewing it,” Sen. Marshall responded.

But after that Dr. Fauci muttered into the live mic, “What a moron! Jesus Christ!”

“Well, I think we were both very much in the moment,” the senator said to Fox News. “I did not take it personal one bit. I was more focused on the true facts. The fact that he had just lied to Congress.”

“And it takes the NIH, it takes this White House months to respond to any type of request for information, and then it’s redacted. It’s quite a game they’re playing. So I was shocked, I was shocked by his response, that he would lie to Congress again after he had already lied about the viral gain-of-function question that I asked him earlier,” the senator said.

The argument with Sen. Marshall came at the same hearing where Dr. Fauci had another argument with Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.

On Tuesday, the two went toe to toe again as Dr. Fauci stood before the Senate to talk about the government’s response to the pandemic.

“The idea that a government official like yourself would claim unilaterally to represent science and that any criticism of you would be considered a criticism of science itself is quite dangerous…It is cheap politics & it is reprehensible,” the senator said.

“You are the lead architect for the response, and now 800k people have died,” he said.

Paul said that Fauci conspired with a colleague to “create a quick and devastating published takedown of three prominent epidemiologists from Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford.”

“In an email exchange with Dr. Collins, you conspire and I quote here directly from the email to create a quick and devastating published takedown of three prominent epidemiologists from Harvard, Oxford and Stanford,” he said.

“Apparently, there’s a lot of fringe epidemiologists at Harvard, Oxford and Stanford,” he said.

“A published takedown, though, doesn’t exactly conjure up the image of a dispassionate scientist. Instead of engaging them on their merits, you and Dr. Collins sought to smear them as fringe and take them down and not in journals in laypress,” he said.

“This is not only antithetical to the scientific method, it is the epitome of cheap politics and it’s reprehensible, Dr. Fauci,” the senator said.

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“Dr. Fauci do you really think it’s appropriate to use your $420,000 salary to attack scientists that disagree with you?” he said.

The doctor was incensed at Paul and went on to personally attack him and accuse him of playing politics.

“In usual fashion, Senator, you are distorting everything about me,” Fauci said.

“You keep coming back to personal attacks on me that have absolutely no relevance,” he said.

The doctor went on to tell the story of a man who was arrested on his way to Washington DC to “kill Dr. Fauci.”

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“What happens when he gets out and accuses me of things that are completely untrue is that all of a sudden that kindles the crazies out there and I have threats upon my life, harassment of my family and my children with obscene phone calls because people are lying about me,” he said.

“Just about three or four weeks ago, on December 21st, a person was arrested who was on their way from Sacramento to Washington DC at a speed stop in Iowa and the police asked him where he was going and he was going to Washington DC to kill Dr. Fauci.

“And they found in his car an AR-15 and multiple magazines of ammunition because he thinks that maybe I’m killing people, so I ask myself ‘Why would Senator want to do this?’

“Go to Rand Paul website and you see ‘Fire Dr. Fauci’ with a little box that says ‘contribute here.’ You can do $5, $10, $10, $100. So you are making a catastrophic epidemic for your political gain,” he said.

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