An extremely tense exchange between Dr. Anthony Fauci and Sen. Rand Paul took place this morning. It happened during a Senate hearing in which Paul pinned Fauci down on NIH-funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the lab suspected to have leaked the COVID virus.

Fauci exploded at one point, accusing Paul of lying even though Paul is clearly not lying. Here’s the video before I get into why Fauci’s moving of the goalposts is so disingenuous.

Things just got tense between Senator @RandPaul and Dr. Fauci.

PAUL: "There will be responsibility for those who funded the lab, including yourself."

FAUCI: "I totally resent the lie that you are now propagating, Senator." pic.twitter.com/RZq3ESb9xM

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 20, 2021

On the merits, Fauci is purposely trying to mislead and obfuscate. It is a fact that NIH funding went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. RedState’s own Scott Hounsell showed that via an extensive series of investigative pieces some months ago (see here, here, and here).

Further, Paul himself proved that reality shortly after the exchange, including the fact that the funding did go to gain-of-function research.

Yes, Dr. Fauci’s NIH did fund the Wuhan Virology Lab. Here’s the verbatim admission from their chief scientist Dr. Shi Zhengli. pic.twitter.com/wk5mzeLWHR

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 20, 2021

What Fauci is trying to do now is grossly dishonest. Instead of accepting his responsibility for not properly overseeing funding and allowing it to go to gain-of-function research in a badly run Chinese lab, he’s attempting to sidestep what Paul is claiming, which is a common tactic used by the good doctor.

Now, Fauci’s excuse is not to deny that the funding happened (something he did originally because he’s a liar), but rather, to claim that the funding did not go toward manipulating the specific viruses that could have led to COVID. In the video, he keeps yelling about the “literature” from the studies proving that the viruses manipulated could not have developed into the coronavirus.

There are two issues with that. One, money is fungible. Even if what Fauci is saying is true, the NIH sent money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to help pay their bills. That is an undeniable fact. Fauci’s argument is a lot like those that claim government funding to Planned Parenthood doesn’t go toward abortions because it’s supposed to go towards rent instead. Of course, it does go toward abortions because money is fungible. If you give money to someone to pay for something in one area, that frees up money to be spent in another area. Also, the simple fact that we were sending these people money at all, no matter where it went, is bad enough, and Fauci should be excoriated for that alone.

Further, literature written by CCP scientists claiming something does not prove anything about where the money actually went and what was experimented on. That Fauci is trying to use “China told us so” as evidence to disprove Paul’s allegation is astonishing. How many more lies must China be caught in before they aren’t trusted anymore? For Fauci, the answer is apparently another one past the last one, and it’s another reason he should have been fired long ago.

To wrap this up, Fauci is a lying, dishonest hack who, like most politicians, wants to skirt every bit of responsibility for his irresponsible actions. He has no business serving in the position he’s in and the moment a Republican retakes the White House, Fauci needs to be the first government employee sent out to pasture.