FANCY FARM, Ky. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Rand Paul wants to subpoena the records of the country’s top infectious disease expert, the senator's wife said while standing in for him at Kentucky's premier political event Saturday.
Paul, a Republican, has repeatedly clashed with Dr. Anthony Fauci over the government's COVID-19 policies and the
origins of the virus that caused the global pandemic. Paul's wife, Kelley, waded into the dispute while promoting her husband's candidacy during the
political speaking at the Fancy Farm picnic in western Kentucky. Paul is seeking a third term and is being challenged by Democrat Charles Booker on November's ballot.
“Now I promise you this, come November when we win, Rand Paul will subpoena every last document of Dr. Fauci’s,” Kelley Paul said.
Rand Paul and the state's senior senator, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, missed the stump-style speaking event because of
Senate duties in Washington.
Sen. Paul and other conservative critics have focused their ire at how the pandemic was handled on Fauci. Paul has promised to wage a vigorous review into the
origins of the coronavirus if Republicans retake the Senate and he lands a committee chairmanship. The Senate currently has a 50-50 split, but Democrats have the edge with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote.
Continuing her comments about Fauci, Kelley Paul said: “Now some people ask why me, why is Rand so hard on poor Dr. Fauci? Well it's simple, because the
American people deserve the truth.
“We deserve the truth about the origins of a virus that killed millions of people,” she added.
U.S. intelligence agencies remain divided on the origins of the coronavirus but believe China’s leaders did not know about the virus before the start of the global pandemic,
according a Biden-ordered review that was released last summer.
Booker, a former state lawmaker
and liberal told the picnic crowd that Paul votes against the interests of Kentuckians, denouncing him as a “terrible senator” and an “embarrassment” to the state.
“Rand Paul is voting against infrastructure because he doesn’t care about Kentucky," Booker said. "He is not going to invest in our health care because he doesn’t care about Kentucky.”
Meanwhile, Paul has access to "the best health care your tax dollars can buy,” Booker said.
The event gave Booker a chance to make inroads against Paul, with a statewide television audience watching the speeches that also featured GOP candidates running for governor in 2023.
The Fancy Farm political speaking is the traditional start of the fall campaign in Kentucky.