"When I first heard about the debate [over the origins of COVID-19]…I assumed that the scientists were being honest with us," says Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.). But his mind changed after reading a May 2021 article self-published on Medium by former New York Times science journalist Nicholas Wade. "As I began looking at this, the evidence, I think, was very, very strong that it came from a lab."

https://reason.com/video/2023/11/16/rand-paul-on-the-lab-leak-deception/