Yesterday, a rather contentious hearing occurred where Fauci was subpoenaed by the Senate to testify over what happened during COVID, which was immediately preceded by the private diaries (which HHS Secretary RFK Jr. team found sequestered on government HHS servers) being released to the public.
The hearing (after opening statements), began with Fauci giving a statement claiming he had been a dutiful servant helping the government for decades, that he was facing a malicious prosecution that put science itself at risk, and that he would be invoking his 5th amendment rights. Following this, Democrat members of the committee repeated this message, while Republican senators gave scathing criticisms of his conduct throughout the pandemic (eclipsing everything we’ve seen thus far), and Fauci, over a hundred times, in response to each question stating:
On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
While the focus of this hearing was largely directed at the scathing statements made toward Fauci (and his refusal to respond to or even acknowledge them), it was also apparent that many of the questions were designed to set up a future prosecution, and that Fauci’s allies gave speeches but never asked him a single question. This suggests the primary focus of both sides was executing a legal strategy each had worked out beforehand.
Note: there are widespread questions about the legitimacy of Fauci’s presidential pardon, which covers all of his federal actions between 1/1/2014 and 1/19/2025, given existing legal precedent that a pardon can negate one’s ability to invoke the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination. Multiple Republican senators pressed this contradiction (that Fauci either does not have a valid pardon or is willfully committing contempt) and it will likely be an issue that plays out in the courts, especially if the committee votes to hold him in contempt.
Given all of this, there were a few noteworthy things about the hearing and Fauci’s diary I felt merited discussion.
Hellbound and Down 