Republicans had a banner election with a clean sweep of the presidency, Senate, and House of Representatives, and that means some prominent lawmakers are getting new roles.

Among them is Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul who will be the new chairman of the Homeland Security Committee starting in January, The New York Post reported.
In an exclusive interview with The Post, he said he wants to use his new job to discover the truth about what he called the “COVID cover-up.”

“I chose to chair this committee over another because I believe that, for the health of our republic, Congress must stand up once again for its constitutional role,” the senator said to The Post on Wednesday. “This committee’s mission of oversight and investigations is critical to Congress reasserting itself.”

“I think we’re on the cusp of, really, the beginning of uncovering what happened with COVID,” he said.

“We are going to, hopefully, have a friendlier administration, and we’re hoping that there will be a friendly person at [the Department of Health and Human Services], and we’re hoping they’ll be friendly at [the National Institutes of Health],” the senator said.He also wants to pass the Risky Research Review Act which would put a stop to projects like funding gain of function research.

“The biggest item of the COVID coverup is that for years, we’ve known there is this dangerous research,” he said.

“The idea that the government would pre-emptively be telling people not to publish things, to me, is horrendous,” the senator said.

Another priority for the 61-year-old senator is to bring back the “Remain In Mexico” policy of the previous Trump administration that had asylum seekers staying in Mexico until there cases were adjudicated.
“Most people don’t understand, myself included, why, if you’re illegally coming across a river in a boat or walking, you’re not just deposited back on the other side?” he said. “You’re breaking the law.”

But his main goal is to shed light on government secrets that have been hidden from the average American.

“We’re just scratching at the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “Most of the [documents] we’ve been trying to get so far are non-classified. You can imagine what may be happening in our government or other governments.”

In July, 2023 the senator referred Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was the head of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the face of the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to the Department of Justice for prosecution.

“I’ve referred Anthony Fauci to the DOJ (again) for lying to Congress when he denied the NIH was funding of gain-of-function research in Wuhan,” he said on X, formerly Twitter.

“Last week’s release of an email in which Fauci confirms that research in Wuhan was gain-of-function adds to an email where his assistants label it GoF as well. Likely nothing more conclusive than catching a liar lying with his own words!” he said.