Congressional Republicans are vowing to keep investigating Anthony Fauci even after he steps down from his government roles at the end of the year.

“Retirement can’t shield Dr. Fauci from congressional oversight,” House Oversight and Reform Committee ranking member James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a statement. Comer would likely become the chair of the committee in a Republican majority.

Fauci, who is chief medical adviser to President Biden and has spent decades as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, announced Monday that he would step down from his positions in the Biden administration after more than a half-century in government. Fauci said he is not retiring and plans to “pursue the next phase” of his career.

“It’s good to know that with his retirement, Dr. Fauci will have ample time to appear before Congress and share under oath what he knew about the Wuhan lab, as well as the ever-changing guidance under his watch that resulted in wrongful mandates being imposed on Americans,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), who is also ranking member on the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, said in a statement.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) also pledged in a tweet that a GOP House majority would “hold him accountable,” charging that Fauci “lost the trust of the American people when his guidance unnecessarily kept schools closed and businesses shut while obscuring questions about his knowledge on the origins of COVID.”

Republicans have already launched probes into the origins of the coronavirus and are planning further investigations and hearings if they win the majority in November, including possibly digging into Fauci’s own records.

“Fauci’s resignation will not prevent a full-throated investigation into the origins of the pandemic. He will be asked to testify under oath regarding any discussions he participated in concerning the lab leak,” tweeted Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has gotten into heated exchanges with Fauci during Senate hearings and is in line to become chairman of the Senate Health Committee if Republicans win the majority in the upper chamber.

Read more at The Hill.

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