A brand new congressional letter delivered some much dreaded news to former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci, as he will once again come face-to-face with his archnemesis, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) toward the end of June. A letter published on June 9, 2026 on the official website of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) says Paul, who is the committee chairman, will be conducting a transcribed interview with Fauci.
The top-ranking Democrat on the committee, Sen. Gary Peters, wrote the letter to Paul complaining about the lack of communication concerning his plans to interview Fauci. Transcribed interviews differ from public hearings due to taking place with members of Congress, congressional staff, witnesses and attorneys. However, the transcriptions or videos of the interview are typically released to the public later.
“You have failed to give the Committee minority notice and opportunity to participate in your planned transcribed interview of Dr. Anthony Fauci later this month and have worked instead to prevent any efforts to ensure a fair and legitimate oversight process,” Peters wrote in the letter, referring to other Democrats on the committee.
According to a report from The Daily Caller, since the GOP has control of the Senate, Republicans hold the committee’s gavel and have the authority to subpoena records and compel witnesses. However, Peters wrote in his letter that he has been open to engaging on the broader topic of lab safety and high-risk virology research in a bipartisan manner.
The last time Paul called on Fauci to provide testimony before the committee was September 12, 2025, due to emails that show Fauci directing his staff members to delete emails in violation of federal records retention laws. “Please delete this email after you read it,” Fauci said to NIAID Director Francis Collins just hours after having a call with virologists to talk about a scientific paper that dismissed the possibility of a lab leak in Wuhan, China.
A Freedom of Information Act request and congressional subpoena would unearth a number of private emails and chats that revealed the authors of the paper had private concerns that a lab accident is what started the COVID-19 pandemic. During the height of the pandemic, Fauci and Paul often got into verbal disagreements over the former’s part in promoting gain-of-function research, which enhances the transmissibility of viruses.
Fauci denied under oath that his agency supported gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. NIAID provided support for a research project held at the facility that manipulated a coronavirus to generate over 10,000 times the viral load of the original virus. HSGAC heard testimony in May 2026 from James Erdman III, a CIA whistleblower.
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Erdman testified that Fauci had influenced the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment of the origins of the COVID-19 virus by connecting various spy agencies with favored scientists who had ties to NIAID or the lab in Wuhan. Just before leaving office in January 2025, former President Joe Biden issued a pardon for Fauci that covered unspecified crimes stretching all the way back to January 1, 2014.