Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that he “likes the idea” of former COVID response chief Anthony Fauci being arrested over his testimony Monday about the early Trump administration response to the coronavirus.
Comer said Fauci lied to Congress about the government’s early COVID response, claiming he made up the recommended 6-foot social distancing, which quickly became ubiquitous amid the pandemic and other restrictions.
“At the end of the day, if you lie to Congress, that’s a felony,” Comer said in a Fox Business interview. “And when you look at the clip you just showed, everyone knows that Dr. Fauci was the lead instigator in the spacing distance.”
“This is something that not only shut down tens of thousands of businesses in America and ran the debt up as a result of having to subsidize those businesses that were shut down and have to subsidize the unemployment rate,” he continued. “It destroyed public education. Kids couldn’t be in school because of the 6-foot social distancing requirements that Dr. Fauci championed.”
Monday’s testimony was Fauci’s first time answering questions under oath since leaving government. He faced a grilling from many Republican critics who have sought to pin blame on the former White House medical adviser for the struggles Americans faced during the pandemic.
Comer said in a Newsmax interview earlier Tuesday that he hopes the testimony can be used to gather evidence for a criminal investigation against Fauci.
“Hopefully, we can take his words today and continue to try to gather evidence and take steps to try to hold him in criminal wrongdoing, because I believe that the majority of Americans realize that Dr. Fauci made costly mistakes, he’s lied about them and he’s tried to cover it up,” Comer said.
Comer chairs the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, which has sought to connect Fauci to misconduct at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci was the director of the institute for decades but testified that he had no knowledge of a senior adviser’s attempts to avoid public information laws.
Fauci was also berated by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who refused to address him as “doctor,” and he got emotional at one point of the hearing when recounting the harassment and death threats he has received for years due to his leadership during the COVID response.