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Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is widely considered the face of the United States’ response to COVID-19, refused to answer any questions during an intense Senate hearing about the pandemic on Wednesday.
The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) invoked the Fifth Amendment 111 times as members of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs pressed him on COVID’s origins, gain-of-function research, and the government’s pandemic response.
Shortly after the hearing began, committee Chairman Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) denied Fauci’s Fifth Amendment rights, reminding him that it’s “against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress.”
Notably, in the 1896 Supreme Court case Brown v. Walker, Justice Henry Billings Brown explained in the court’s majority opinion that “if the witness has already received a pardon, he cannot longer set up his [Fifth Amendment] privilege, since he stands, with respect to such offense, as if it had never been committed.” Because former President Joe Biden granted Fauci a preemptive pardon, the doctor could not face legal consequences for his testimony as long as he told the truth and avoided a potential perjury charge.
Still, Fauci refused to answer the committee’s questions. Paul warned the former public health official that there “will be repercussions to your refusal to testify today” and later announced a vote on whether to hold the former public health official in contempt of Congress.
The Doctor’s Diary: a Timeline
One of the hearing’s central topics was Fauci’s diary, which contains hundreds of pages of detailed entries about his personal experiences throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Fox News that the HHS obtained the diary, which was on government computers, and gave it to Paul’s committee. The diary exposed striking differences between what Fauci said behind closed doors and what he told the American people.
On January 26, 2020, for example, Fauci wrote in his diary that “the first [coronavirus] infection was in early December and was not connected to the market.” “Now we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier,” he added. Days later, on February 1, Fauci recalled meeting with 12 scientists about COVID’s origins – only two believed the illness was natural. “[T]he rest felt that deliberate insertion was possible,” Fauci wrote.
But publicly, Fauci told a different story. Later that year, Fauci said in a National Geographic feature: “If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what's out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated. … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species.”
Viewed alongside the real-world impact of the pandemic, the timeline exposed by Fauci’s diary raises troubling questions about the former official’s priorities during one of the deadliest public health crises in American history.
Consider the third week of May that year. On May 18, 2020, ABC11 reported on a now-viral image of nurses dressed head to toe in personal protective equipment holding signs against a hospital window that read, “He is at peace” and “We are so sorry.” The nurses had been caring for the father of a New Hampshire family who had been barred from being with him during his final moments.
On May 20, Fox 11 reported that a Costco customer was denied service due to his refusal to wear a mask.
On May 22, San Diego police shut down El Prez, a small business, for allegedly violating government health orders.
As hospitals blocked families from comforting dying loved ones, financial strain crushed small businesses, and pandemic restrictions disrupted American life at every level, what was Dr. Fauci focused on? Why, himself, of course.
That same week, on May 21, 2020, Fauci wrote in his now-infamous and typo-riddled diary:
Big front page article abut me appeared in the Washington Post. Very flattering. The situation with my national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable. It is not hyoperbole to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable peson in the world.
Much of Fauci’s diary is equally verbose and self-absorbed, with near-constant mentions of his media appearances, celebrity encounters, and magazine cover shoots – it makes his refusal to speak during Wednesday’s hearing even more ridiculous. “Isn't it amazing that the guy who used to literally call himself THE SCIENCE all over TV suddenly has nothing to say?” Rand Paul quipped.
Long Fauci
By now, nearly everyone has heard of Long COVID, described by the CDC as “a serious illness that can result in chronic conditions, require comprehensive care, and can sometimes cause disability.” But an arguably far more serious condition has emerged: Long Fauci.
From face masks and social distancing to lockdowns and remote learning, Long Fauci is a devastating condition caused by years of heavy-handed public health guidance. The symptoms of Long Fauci are well documented, including increased anxiety and depression, developmental delays in children, and lasting economic hardship.
After the elderly died alone, small businesses were destroyed, and adults and children suffered, the world is still dealing with a lingering case of Long Fauci – but at least the diary doctor got his 15 minutes of fame.
