Senate Homeland Security Chairman Rand Paul has scheduled a transcribed interview with Anthony Fauci for late June 2026, a move revealed not by Paul's own announcement but by a complaint from the committee's top Democrat.
The interview was disclosed Tuesday when Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, published a letter accusing Paul of bypassing standard committee procedures. Peters alleged Paul had "failed to give the Committee minority notice and opportunity to participate in your planned transcribed interview of Dr. Anthony Fauci later this month," according to the letter. The complaint, meant as a procedural grievance, effectively confirmed what Paul had not yet announced publicly.
Paul, who chairs the committee, has spent more than a year building a case that Fauci directed NIH employees to delete official records and misled Congress about it. The upcoming session marks the next formal step in that effort. Unlike a public hearing, a transcribed interview is conducted by committee members and staff with a witness and his attorneys present, and the transcript is typically released afterward.
The central question Paul is expected to press involves a specific email. One day after the February 1, 2020 "Proximal Origins" conference call, in which top virologists discussed whether COVID-19 might have originated in a laboratory, Fauci sent a message to then-NIH Director Francis Collins and others that ended with the instruction, "Please delete this e-mail after you read it," according to records Paul's committee obtained and released in September 2025.
The problem for Fauci is what he said under oath. During a transcribed interview before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in January 2024, and again at a public hearing before the same panel in June 2024, Fauci was asked directly whether he had ever deleted federal records or asked others to do so. He said no. He also denied having sought to obstruct Freedom of Information Act requests. Those denials now sit alongside email evidence that, according to Paul, directly contradicts them. Paul formally referred Fauci to the Department of Justice in 2025 and has since re-referred the case, urging DOJ to act before statutes of limitations expire.
A second email, from July 2020, shows Fauci writing to an NIH employee dismissing Paul's inquiries as "nonsense" and again closing with, "please delete this e-mail after you read it," according to Paul's committee records. The pattern, Paul has argued, reflects a deliberate effort to keep communications off the federal record.
The CIA Whistleblower
The scheduled interview follows one of the more significant hearings in the committee's recent history. On May 13, James Erdman III, identified as a Senior Operations Officer at the Central Intelligence Agency, testified before Paul's committee after being subpoenaed. Erdman alleged that Fauci "injected himself" into the intelligence community's COVID origins review in February 2020 and again in June 2021, when the Biden administration launched a 90-day intelligence assessment. According to Erdman's testimony, Fauci provided intelligence analysts with "a conflicted list of curated subject matter experts" that shaped the findings, and CIA analysts who concluded a laboratory leak was the most probable origin had their work softened or withheld from Congress.
The CIA has not publicly confirmed or denied Erdman's specific allegations. Fauci has consistently denied wrongdoing and, as of available reports, has not responded publicly to the latest developments. Comment was sought from his representatives by news outlets covering the story.
Paul has also written separately to the Justice Department urging an investigation into the conduct of Fauci's top NIH advisor, a referral that runs parallel to the one targeting Fauci directly. DOJ has not announced any action on either referral.
Whether the late-June session produces new admissions, new documents, or simply fresh denials, its transcript will eventually become public record. If Fauci's answers contradict what the emails and Erdman's testimony suggest, Paul will have grounds for yet another referral. If they align with the evidence Paul has assembled, the political pressure on DOJ to act will intensify. The interview is unlikely to be the last word on a story that has been building since February 2020.
Also read: House Republicans push to impeach Atlanta judge who lied to investigators • Bill Gates sits before House investigators in closed-door Epstein inquiry • HHS Opens Formal Probe of CAIR Over Terror Ties and Misspent Afghan Funds
