Anthony Fauci was among the individuals with questionable track records who received controversial pardons just prior to former President Joe Biden leaving office.

Fauci, the fifth director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, specifically received a "full and unconditional" pass for possible federal crimes going back to Jan. 1, 2014 — around the time the Obama administration supposedly halted funding for dangerous gain-of-function research.

'Dr. Fauci, as you are aware, it is a crime to lie to Congress.'

Molecular biologist Dr. Richard H. Ebright of Rutgers University, a leading critic of Fauci's flirtations with gain-of-function research, previously provided Blaze News with insights into why Fauci might require an accountability shield, noting that he "violated federal policies on gain-of-function and enhanced potential pandemic pathogen research, committed conspiracy to defraud and perjury, used federal funds to commit crimes, and caused and covered up the cause of a pandemic that killed 20 million and cost $25 trillion."

The Oversight Project revealed earlier this year that like the other pardons hastily dispensed before Biden left office, Fauci's was signed with an automatic signature device. Unfortunately for Fauci, there is presently a great deal of uncertainty over the former president's involvement with the autopen pardons and their legitimacy.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul (R) announced on Monday that he was refiling his criminal referral of Fauci to the Department of Justice. Paul's announcement follows the New York Times' publication of Biden's weak defense of his handlers' use of the autopen along with insights into who was actually behind Fauci's last-minute pardon.

"Perjury is a crime," Paul said on X. "And Fauci must be held accountable."

RELATED: Biden tried defending autopen use to the New York Times. He made it a whole lot worse.

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

During a Senate hearing in July 2021, Paul pressed Fauci about the National Institutes of Health funding research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origins of the coronavirus.

"Dr. Fauci, as you are aware, it is a crime to lie to Congress," Paul said.

"On your last trip to our committee on May 11 [2021], you stated that the NIH 'has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.' And yet, gain-of-function research was done entirely in the Wuhan Institute by Dr. Shi and was funded by the NIH," he continued.

'Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly.'

Paul's smoking gun was a 2017 WIV paper on SARS-related coronaviruses that discussed gain-of-function work on coronaviruses and acknowledged funding from NIAID as well as from the United States Agency for International Development's Predict program.

"Viruses that in nature only infect animals were manipulated in the Wuhan lab to gain the function of infecting humans," said Paul. "This research fits the definition of the research that the NIH said was subject to the pause in 2014 to 2017 — a pause in funding on gain-of-function."

When afforded an opportunity to retract his previous statement, Fauci instead dug in his heels, stating, "Senator Paul, I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement," adding that the study referenced in the 2017 paper was not gain-of-function.

"Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly," added Fauci. "And I want to say that officially."

Paul subsequently referred Fauci to the DOJ, asking then-Attorney General Merrick Garland to open an investigation into the former NIAID director over his testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

The senator noted that contrary to Fauci's suggestion, research conducted "at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and funded under NIAID Award R01AI110964 fits the definition of gain-of-function research."

The recipient of this particular award was Peter Daszak's scandal-plagued organization EcoHealth Alliance, which congressional investigators indicated facilitated gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab and was formally debarred along with Daszak in January by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

RELATED: Patel's 'breakthrough' in COVID origins probe spells trouble for Fauci — especially if his pardon is voided

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Paul asked the Biden DOJ again in 2023 to probe Fauci for allegedly lying to Congress after the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released an email apparently showing the former NIAID director acknowledge that gain-of-function was indeed taking place at a Chinese institution which the U.S. Government Accountability Office confirmed had received NIH funding along with the WIV.

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Blaze News has reached out to Paul's office and the DOJ for comment.

Paul's referral comes on the heels of autopen bombshells printed in the New York Times.

Biden told the Times in a phone interview on Thursday that he orally communicated his clemency directions to aides, that the autopen was used liberally because they were dealing with "a whole lot of people" — a record number, actually — and that he did not personally approve every individual categorical clemency.

The White House emails turned over to investigators by the National Archives and reviewed by the Times also cast doubt on the provenance of Fauci's pardon and others like it issued in Biden's final hours in office.

The emails reportedly indicated that the former president's clemency instructions were written up on the basis of hearsay by aides to Biden advisers, then executed by the master of the autopen, Biden White House staff secretary Stefanie Feldman. When it came to the high-profile autopen pardons issued on Biden's final day, the final approval reportedly came not from Biden but from his chief of staff, Jeffrey Zients.

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