In a 2020 email, Fauci stated that he knew gain-of-function research was being carried out at the lab. One week later, US President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning “dangerous gain-of-function research” in foreign labs, and pausing funding for such projects on US soil. In testimony to Congress in 2024, however, former USAID Administrator Samantha Power refused to label the research ‘gain-of-function’. “We believe that with his… immunity from criminal liability, that he didn’t need to hide behind the Fifth Amendment and that maybe the Fifth Amendment doesn’t attach when you have a pardon in place,”Paul explained. The Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution asserts nobody can be “compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself”.