Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky says there’s something shady taking place with the job status of Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Fauci officially retired as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases on Dec. 31. However, during an appearance on the Fox News show “Hannity” on Tuesday, Paul said that might not be what actually has taken place,

“There’s a massive cover-up going on, and the lead in all of the cover-up has been Fauci,” Paul said.

“We now have information that he’s still working for government, even though he says he’s retired,” he continued.

Paul offered his explanation for what he has learned.

“It is my belief that he is worried about being indicted, and so he continues to work, so he will get legal protection under the federal government,” Paul said.

“This is wrong on every level of it, and we are going to get to the bottom of it. We are sending a letter to find out what the actual status of his employment is. Is he retired? Is he still getting a federal detail?”

Paul noted that he has many concerns about COVID-19 and its origins and treatment and that “At the top of every sort of concern we have it's Tony Fauci.”

[firefly_poll]

In speaking with Jesse Watters of Fox News, Paul said there was an extreme conflict of interest in Fauci setting federal policy on COVID while being in charge of an agency doling out federal grants.

In an Op-Ed on Fox News, Paul said that the agency Fauci headed needs to be reformed to end a situation Paul likened to the long reign of J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI.

@RandPaul on Fauci cashing in off the Covid vaccine: $400 million in total goes to the NIH and even if it’s goes back out in grants, it’s still self-interested. Fauci was in charge of dispensing all this money while being a policy maker. pic.twitter.com/7DjXvinvHk

— Jesse Watters Primetime (@jesseprimetime) March 23, 2023

“We now know Dr. Fauci used his perch atop the nation’s biodefense research apparatus to finance gain-of-function experiments on bat coronaviruses in China. In doing so, he bypassed a security protocol to screen out projects that posed too much risk,” he wrote.

Paul said he has proposed legislation to divide the agency Fauci led into three parts and ensure that the leaders of those sections serve no more than 10 years, with appointments subject to Senate approval.

“J. Edgar Hoover and Anthony Fauci are two real-life examples of how too much power in too few hands creates an echo chamber where decisions cannot be questioned. But a free and open society depends upon questioning those in power. A people’s trust in science depends upon it, too,” Paul wrote.

During his appearance on “Hannity,” Paul addressed the issue of increased risks of myocarditis -- an inflammation of the heart -- in some who get the COVID vaccine.

“You have to weigh the risk and benefit. ... If you are over 65 or over 70, the risk of the disease, at least for the last couple years, has been much greater than any perceived or any real risk of the vaccine, I believe that,” Paul said

“But if you are younger, the risks of the vaccine, even though they’re rare, can actually exceed the risk of the disease," he said.

“We’ve got universities mandating three vaccines,” Paul said. “I think that’s malpractice because the risk of the myocarditis increases with each vaccine. There’s a lot of compromises that could happen here: one vaccine, no vaccine if your kid’s already had it. But instead, the government says do as you’re told, don’t think about this, don’t listen to any dissent, just do as you are told. And that’s a recipe for bad medicine and really malpractice.”

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.