Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) says House Republicans are building their case against Dr. Anthony Fauci.

In an interview with Newsmax host Benny Johnson, Jordan noted that Congress could issue a criminal referral to prosecute Fauci, but it won't happen.

There "could be a referral, but you would refer it to the Biden Justice Department.  I don't know that — they're going to pursue that, but you can definitely do that," Jordan said.  

"We could do a referral potentially.  I would, frankly, prefer just to have Dr. Fauci come back in and take another round of questions here, but we're building the case," he added.

Jordan accused Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of "juicing up" the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I do think Dr. Fauci and the CDC changed the definition of gain-of-function research, so that Fauci has, like, this wiggle room, but they were juicing up this virus, no doubt about it, juicing up this virus," he said.

During a hearing of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Jordan claimed that Fauci lied about the origins of COVID-19.

He accused Fauci of working hard to promote a theory about the pandemic's origins, saying people who believed that it originated from a lab were censored, blacklisted, and mocked.

In 2023, the Department of Energy (DOE) assessed that the pandemic originated from a lab leak in Wuhan, China.

According to Newsweek, Fauci told CNN that the effort to prosecute him is "craziness."  His comments came after Twitter CEO Elon Musk called for his prosecution.  He said that such efforts are "actually irresponsible."

Dr. Fauci is asked about @ElonMusk’s “My Pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci” Tweet:

“There’s no response to that craziness… I mean — prosecute me for what?!” pic.twitter.com/H12sePrRMz

— ALX рџ‡єрџ‡ё (@alx) March 12, 2023

Fauci says he's received death threats over the GOP's call to have him prosecuted.

"I mean, they don't like to have me getting death threats all the time.  Every time someone gets up and spouts some nonsense that's misinformation, disinformation and outright lies, somebody somewhere decides they want to do harm to me and or my family," he said.  "That's the part of it that is really unfortunate."

"The rest of it is just insanity, the things they're saying.  But it does have a negative effect when people take it seriously and take it out on you and your family," he added.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C., Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Fauci would go to jail under any "sane system."

"There has been no person who has done more to destroy trust in the scientific and medical community than Dr. Anthony Fauci, who told millions of Americans lies willingly, knowingly, glibly, supremely arrogantly," Cruz said.

"Should there be accountability?  In any sane system he would be prosecuted for lying under oath, and he would go to jail for lying under oath to Congress," he added.

In 2021, Fox News host Steve Hilton claimed that Fauci lied to Congress about the origins of COVID-19 and called for his prosecution.  

On his show, The Next Revolution, Hilton showed a 2012 video where Fauci described "gain-of-function" research.

Hilton claimed that Fauci's words describing the research were the same used in a report describing U.S.-funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Gain-of-function research enhances an organism's ability to create diseases, therefore increasing immunity.  It occurs to understand how pathogens adapt to environmental pressures.

Image: Anthony Fauci.  NIAID via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 (cropped).