Sen. Tommy Tuberville said Wednesday that Dr. Anthony Fauci is not immune from state lawsuits despite receiving a pre-emptive pardon by President Biden before he left the White House.
“I went through dozens of hearings when I first got here in 2021 with Fauci basically lying through his teeth to the American people and all over the world [about the COVID pandemic],” Mr. Tuberville, Alabama Republican, said during an appearance on SiriusXM’s David Webb Show.
Dr. Fauci, the former longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, took the Fifth before the Senate Homeland Security Committee Wednesday after being subpoenaed to testify. His appearance followed the public release of his diary excerpts during the pandemic.
“We all believed him at the beginning because he’s the NIAID director. You would think, in a situation like that, you’re a doctor, you’re going to preach the truth,” Mr. Tuberville said, asserting that Dr. Fauci lied to President Trump and to lawmakers on the HELP Committee and Oversight Committee when he said he never funded gain-of-function research in China.
“He should be in jail,” he said.
“And don’t give me this stuff about Joe Biden pardoning him. Joe Biden, Cabbage Head himself, he didn’t understand the significance of what this guy had done,” said Mr. Tuberville, who is retiring from the Senate to run for governor.
“If I’m fortunate to be elected governor here, starting January 1, as governor of Alabama, we lost 30,000 people,” he said. “Some of my friends died from COVID. And he might’ve got a federal pardon, but he didn’t get a state pardon.”
He said he hoped that voters in the state will file a lawsuit against Dr. Fauci.
“He might not ever go to prison, but he’s going to think courtrooms are prison because he’s going to have to show up and tell judges and people across the state of Alabama why he lied to the American people,” Mr. Tuberville said.
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