Exclusive | Sen. Rand Paul says Dr. Anthony Faucis power abuse has nothing on J. Edgar Hoover with COVID cover up

WASHINGTON — Sen.Rand Paul (R-Ky.) accused Dr.

Anthony Fauci of abusing his power during a 40-year career in government, to the extent that even notorious FBI boss J.Edgar Hoover “has nothing on” the ex-National Institutes of Health official.Paul told The Post’s Miranda Devine in an interview with “Pod Force One,” released Wednesday, that the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director had exerted a powerful influence for decades on US-funded research.But whistleblower testimony and internal government emails related to the COVID-19 pandemic have since revealed the degree to which Fauci also involved himself in the publication of controversial articles in scientific journals about SARS-CoV-2 — and “influenced” US intelligence assessments about its origins.“People talk about J.

Edgar Hoover,” Paul said.“J.

Edgar Hoover has nothing on Anthony Fauci — 40 years of placing all his lieutenants in all the positions, and then after 9/11, the funding for bio-research and bio-terrorism went through the roof, and he became the kingpin that had access to all of that money.”Fauci has testified in congressional hearings about holding a “pretty high level” security clearance since 2004, when he was helping to set up a US biodefense program in the wake of the anthrax attacks.He also told Congress that he had broad authority to “sign off” on thousands of federal grants annually for research when serving as NIAID director from 1984 to 2022.But the former public health official has consistently denied that US-funded, gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology may have sparked the COVID-19 pandemic, maintaining that SARS-CoV-2 most likely originated in a natural spillover from animals to humans.“The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute,” Fauci declared in a heated line of questioning from Paul during a May 2021 Senate hearing.That testimony was later...