Sen. Paul Issues Subpoena Requiring Fauci to Testify on COVID-19 Origins in July
The subpoena escalates a months-long congressional effort to compel testimony on federal pandemic-era research funding and the laboratory leak hypothesis, with the legal mechanism now replacing...
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) issued a subpoena on or before June 23, 2026, requiring Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to appear before the Senate Homeland Security Committee in July to testify on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to statements Paul made to CNBC. The subpoena represents a formal legal compulsion after what Paul described as an extended period of unsuccessful voluntary negotiation.
Paul told CNBC: 'We've been negotiating with him for material and for testimony. This has gone on for some time. He slow-walked us.' Paul stated that Fauci had previously committed to testifying voluntarily before the committee but did not fulfill that commitment, prompting Paul to pursue the subpoena as the next procedural step. The Senate Homeland Security Committee holds subpoena authority under Senate rules governing standing committees.
The inquiry centers on the origins of SARS-CoV-2, including the laboratory leak hypothesis and the role of federal grant funding — including NIH grants administered through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — in supporting coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. Paul and Fauci clashed repeatedly in prior public hearings before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee between 2021 and 2022, with exchanges entered into the Congressional Record, over the definition of gain-of-function research and whether NIH-funded work met that definition.
Fauci stepped down as NIAID director in December 2022 after more than five decades at the agency. He testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in June 2024, a transcript of which is part of the public congressional record. His legal representatives' response to the current Senate subpoena, if any, was not publicly available as of the publication of this report.
What remains unknown as of June 23, 2026, includes the precise date and format of the scheduled July hearing, whether Fauci's legal counsel has filed any motion to quash the subpoena, and the full scope of documentary materials the committee is seeking alongside live testimony. The Senate Homeland Security Committee's official hearing calendar and any filed legal responses in federal court would be the public records that would answer those questions.