A criminal prosecution case for contempt has been sent from Committee to the Justice Dept against America’s “Covid Savior” Dr. Anthony Fauci, 85, for pleading the Fifth Amendment.
The case has now been sent directly to Washington’s U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Going straight to Jeanine Pirro bypasses the full Senate. A contempt resolution in the Senate requires 60 votes. It is unlikely the Fauci resolution would receive enough support in the full Senate to pass.
Hence the move to play around that obstacle with a direct filing to the court.
Democrats were outraged and decried the maneuver as illegitimate.
It arises because Dr. Anthony Fauci used the Fifth Amendment in a Committee appearance.
The Fifth Amendment is enshrined in the US constitution to save individuals from being forced to incriminate themselves. The US supreme court has confirmed in several decisions since 1955 that witnesses can invoke it in congressional investigations.
The move to send a criminal contempt referral directly to the federal prosecutor rather than allow a full Senate vote violates Senate traditions on how to handle contempt, say Democrats.
A contempt referral must typically be approved by the full Senate after a congressional committee, which would require a 60-vote majority – requiring Democratic support.
The move was made by Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs chairman Rand Paul, though few doubt that the hand on the wheel is Trump’s. In past Senate hearings, Paul has clashed with Fauci and has staunchly promoted the “lab leak” theory, suggesting that COVID-19 escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Rand Paul has a medical degree – in ophthalmology.
Push-back was immediate.
“If this committee now seeks to punish a witness for asserting their constitutionally protected Fifth Amendment rights, future witnesses will argue that appearing before Congress exposes them to punishment regardless of whether they comply with a subpoena and invoke a constitutional protection,”
Fauci had sat in a packed Senate hearing room for nearly 3 hours without answering any questions, pleading the Fifth. He was accused of planning the pandemic and even of profiting from it.
Fauci noted that Paul had an “unhinged obsession with me.” Paul’s sole reason for questioning Fauci, he said, “is to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars.’”
He had been targeted by Republicans for his support of public health measures such as wearing masks, vaccine mandates, and school and business closures.
Michigan Sen. Gary Peters said Paul’s process to subpoena Fauci and now to hold him in contempt accomplished nothing to advance public health. He called Paul’s work “a one-sided investigation and a rushed process ... that could harm our ability to conduct future investigations.”
The former director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Fauci was responsible for saving thousands of American lives during the Covid-19 pandemic five years ago. He led the agency for 38 years.
A hostile inquisition into his stewardship of the crises was launched to assuage the rage of Trump, who felt slighted by his own criminal neglect in the pandemic.
When the virus first surfaced, Trump’s immediate concern was that it might depress the stock market.
Trump’s chorus of sycophantic allies made it clear that to recognize the danger of COVID was to commit a thought-crime against Trump. If a thought crime is possible against Trump.
Fauci frequently contradicted Trump’s optimistic claims and pushed for stricter lockdowns.
As is usual with Trump, he accused his ‘opponent’ of the crime he was himself trying to cover up:
“Many more people died of Covid under the Biden Administration than under the Trump Administration,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “‘Operation Warp Speed’ was a SPECTACULAR SUCCESS, in fact, many say, one of the most successful things ever done by an American President. I overrode Fauci on this. His ideas were CRAZY! Also, I said from the beginning that the Virus came from the Wuhan Laboratory in China. Fauci strongly disagreed, always trying to protect China.”
The origin of the virus is not in doubt: Environmental samples from market stalls, cages, and animal processing equipment in China tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. It did not come from a lab. A Republican Committee backed Trump up, but this has no meaning in the world of science.
When the pandemic struck the US, Trump at first denied that it was serious, saying that it would all be over by Spring.
The virus eventually infected 103-million Americans – one in every three in the population – and took 1,238,000 American lives. It was the worst death toll of any country, and the 17th highest in the world per capita. It dropped American life expectancy by three years.
In the face of MAGA-style resistance, the United States fully vaccinated only about 66 percent of the population by the end of April 2022.
The MAGA counties that resisted Covid vaccinations had much higher rates of infection and death.
It is estimated that 40% or more of those deaths could have been avoided if Trump had taken Covid seriously and supported masks, public closures and anti-infection protocols.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists put the number higher: ”Through his actions and inactions, this callous, self-absorbed president and his administration are responsible—by standard statistical measures—for well over half of all US coronavirus deaths.”
Trump is therefore responsible for the deaths of more than 600,000 Americans.
Under Trump, the US suffered 82,000 COVID-19 deaths per million persons.
By contrast, Canada experienced 248 deaths per million.
This mortality difference can legitimately be called “American carnage.” Caused by Trump.
Why Trump has never been put in front of a jury for tis crime is beyond me. People seem to have given him a pass. But in any other country in the world he would have been put on trial for mass murder.
The fact that he feels he has to crush Fauci tells us how out-of-control his inner rages have become, and how overwhelmed his sense of justice v.s. grievance.
Trump at first asked the government for $2.5-billion to fight the outbreak; even a divided Congress cold see that it was an inadequate amount and raised it to $8.3-billion.
The government eventually spent $4.2-trillion.
Trump was slow in getting Covid prevention underway. As it got underway he said: “I want to tell you the truth about the coronavirus. Yeah, I’m dead right on this. The coronavirus is the common cold, folks.”
Forty times he said that the virus would go away by itself. He insisted that prevention was up to the states, trying to defer blame. He waffled all over the place, at times claiming “total authority” to reopen the economy, but also repeatedly stating that managing and reopening operations was up to individual state governors.
He praised governors who lifted restrictions quickly and feuded with those who maintained strict mandates.
“The doctor made too many bad calls, like on MASKS,” he said.
“In any event I didn’t let him shut the Country down, although he wanted to. I went the Federalist way, and let the governors decide. The Republican governors did a much better job than the Dumocrats. Fauci was largely taken out of play.”
Fauci and Trump were often at odds throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, differing on health policy and with Trump at times contradicting his guidance.
Trump was a total clown regarding the virus.
In January 2020, he stated, “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine”.
Trump wanted to have people injected with disinfectant.
He suggested bringing “light inside the body” or hitting the body with “a very powerful light,” such as ultraviolet rays, to kill the virus.
Trump heavily promoted the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a “game changer,” despite a lack of clinical evidence.
He was against Covid testing because it revealed more cases and made him look bad.
He attacked news outlets for covering the virus, calling CNN “dumb bastards”.
He actively resisted wearing face coverings in public and openly mocked political opponents, such as Biden, for routinely wearing them. Then he caught the virus, was rushed to hospital, and was saved because of preferential treatment.
Trump publicly called the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, Fauci, a “disaster” and claimed that “people are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots”. Biden pre-emptively pardoned Fauci before leaving office in case he was prosecuted by the Trump administration.
Before the hearing, 155 AIDS activists, HIV and other infectious disease researchers, and other scientists released a letter describing Fauci as “a national hero.” They called the charges against him “baseless” and decried the “witch hunts”.
The Trump lackey who Fauci was referred to, Pirro, is trying to suck up to Trump more then ever. She has drawn fire recently from Trump over her dispute of Trump’s false claims that vandals damaged the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. She was on the cusp of being fired. She will be extra sucky now.
But back in the Covid days in 2020, Pirro wore a mask to avoid infection.
And now she will be prosecuting the doctor who led the charge on masking practices.
In a parallel measure of sleaziness, some Senators obtained Fauci’s medical diary and published 1,000 pages of it.
David Schertler, legal counsel for Fauci, called Thursday’s vote on contempt “a crude political stunt intended to punish Dr. Fauci for exercising his constitutional rights.”
“The Senate should reject Senator Paul’s meritless and politically-motivated contempt resolution. For years, Senator Paul has proclaimed to anyone who would listen that Dr. Fauci should be prosecuted and put in prison. Dr. Fauci has committed no crime -- and Senator Paul knows it.”
Fauci pleaded the Fifth 111 times and was found in contempt of Congress.
Trump pleaded the Fifth 443 times and was not found guilty.
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