Six years after COVID-19 thrust the world into the fear and uncertainty of a global pandemic, Republicans in power aren’t leaving it in the past. The efforts ramped up last week, when a Republican-led Senate committee chaired by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul subpoenaed the now-retired, 85-year-old Fauci to testify about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Democrats, meanwhile, have slammed the federal government’s blaming of Fauci as a performative distraction that’s not based in facts. Also discussed at Fauci’s hearing last week was whether NIH-funded research in China played a role in how the pandemic started. Many dismiss the idea that Republicans’ COVID fact-finding is genuineAs Republicans hold up scrutiny of Fauci as important accountability, Democrats have called it disingenuous.