The Latest: Dr. Anthony Fauci will face questions from Senate Republicans about COVID-19 origins

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. scientist who helped lead the nation’s COVID-19 pandemic response, is set to face off — again — with a Republican senator probing the origins of the coronavirus.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky subpoenaed Fauci to appear before a Senate committee Wednesday. It’s part of Paul’s yearslong accusations that the now-retired infectious disease expert had lied about the pandemic, something Fauci has called “preposterous.”

Meanwhile, roughly six weeks before the first midterm ballots is seeking greater control over mail balloting through an executive order while a change to how the agency processes mail is leading to criticism that it’s failing to deliver ballots on time.

Here’s the latest:

Investigators in Comey seashells case omitted key facts and distorted others, defense lawyers allege

Federal officials involved in the prosecution of James Comey misled judges, submitted false statements and withheld key facts during the course of the investigation, according to new defense filings that seek the dismissal of a case charging the former FBI director with threatening President Trump on social media.

Lawyers for Comey made the allegations of misconduct in motions filed late Tuesday that also call the case a vindictive and selective prosecution, request access to transcripts of grand jury proceedings to expose what they say are “irregularities” in how the indictment was secured, and describe “unlawful” surveillance of Comey by the Secret Service.

Taken together, the new motions, along with an earlier one this week that called Comey’s social media post protected speech and not a threat, represent a multiprong defense effort to dismantle a case defense lawyers say exemplifies a Trump administration retribution campaign targeting one of the president’s most vocal critics.

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Trump’s attacks on mail balloting and concerns over delays turn midterms spotlight on Postal Service

Roughly six weeks before the first midterm ballots are mailed out, the U.S. Postal Service is emerging as a pivotal player in an election season that will determine control of Congress.

President Donald Trump is seeking greater control over mail balloting through an executive order while a change to how the agency processes mail is leading to criticism that it’s failing to deliver ballots on time.

Democratic officials have raised concerns over the past week about how quickly the Postal Service will process ballots after tens of thousands of them in California and hundreds in Wisconsin arrived at local election offices too late to be counted in elections earlier this year. The top election offices in Kansas and Michigan are urging voters who want to cast their ballots early to avoid the mail and instead drop them off in person.

The Postal Service replied to those concerns Tuesday by saying it remains “committed to fulfilling our role in the electoral process.”

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Anthony Fauci again faces questions from Senate Republicans about pandemic origins

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. scientist who helped lead the nation’s COVID-19 pandemic response, is set to face off — again — with a Republican senator probing the origins of the coronavirus.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky subpoenaed Fauci to appear before a Senate committee Wednesday. It’s part of Paul’s yearslong accusations that the now-retired infectious disease expert had lied about the pandemic, something Fauci has called “preposterous.”

Leading up to the hearing, Paul released more than a thousand pages of Fauci’s personal diary covering the pandemic years. Pointing to some notes about early efforts at understanding how the virus emerged, Paul wrote on the social media platform X that what Fauci “wrote privately and what he told the country are two different stories.”

But they’re likely to further inflame a partisan divide that, years after the pandemic, still makes Fauci a target of vitriol from people who blame him for mask mandates and other policies they believe infringed on their rights as hundreds of thousands of people were dying.

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