Ted Cruz Calls Anthony Fauci 'Most Dangerous Bureaucrat' in American History

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) called Dr. Anthony Fauci "the most dangerous bureaucrat" in American history following the infectious diseases expert's interview with CBS.

Cruz spoke to Fox News' Sean Hannity on Monday and again accused Fauci, who is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), of lying to Congress about National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for gain-of-function research.

Fauci laughed off suggestions that he should be prosecuted for lying to Congress during his interview with CBS' Face the Nation on Sunday and he has repeatedly denied the accusation.

Cruz told Hannity on Monday: "'Dr. Fauci, I think, is the most dangerous bureaucrat in the history of the country."

The senator referred to Fauci's comments in the recent interview. Hannity had just shown a clip of it.

"He talks, a moment ago ... about hurting science but I don't think anyone has hurt science, has hurt the credibility of the CDC, has hurt the credibility of doctors more than Dr. Fauci because throughout this pandemic, he's been dishonest, he's been political, he's been partisan," Cruz said.

"And the American people know it," Cruz said, criticizing the Biden administration's decision to require masks in schools.

"This weekend, he did this long interview where he gave the answer, he said: 'I represent science. I am science.' I gotta admit, Sean, I was laughing. It's like Louis XIV, the sun king in France saying 'l'État, c'est moi - I am the state.' It is this delusion of grandeur - that you cannot criticize him," the senator said.

Cruz then addressed Fauci's response to a question about potential prosecution for lying to Congress. CBS' Margaret Brennan had asked Fauci about Cruz' call for him to be prosecuted.

The senator said Fauci had responded to the question with ad hominem attacks and what he called the "Beavis and Butt-Head" defense of screaming "liars at everything."

Cruz accused Fauci of lying to Congress in May about NIH funding for gain-of-function research in a lab in Wuhan, China. Fauci said the NIH didn't fund such research.

On October 20, Lawrence Tabak, the NIH's principal deputy director, wrote in a letter to Representative James Comer that a "limited experiment" carried out by EcoHealth Alliance in a Wuhan lab had tested whether "spike proteins from naturally occurring bat coronaviruses circulating in China were capable of binding to the human ACE2 receptor in a mouse model."

Cruz mentioned 18USC, Code 1001, under which individuals can be prosecuted for lying to Congress.

"The statements from Dr. Fauci and the NIH are directly contradictory," Cruz told Hannity. "I think Margaret Brennan is a talented journalist, but she dropped the ball in not following up, letting him just respond with insults instead of asking the simple question.

"You stated that we don't fund gain-of-function research, the NIH stated that we do fund gain-of-function research. They can't both be true. And if you lie to Congress, it's a felony. She didn't press him on that," he said.

Fauci has denied lying to Congress, telling ABC News on October 24: "Neither I nor Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the NIH, lied or misled about what we've done."

The infectious diseases expert said the research "was very strictly under what we call a framework of oversight of the type of research."

"And under those conditions which we have explained very, very clearly, does not constitute research of gain-of-function of concern," Fauci said. "There are people who interpret it that way, but when you look at the framework under which the guidance is, that is not the case."