Although news of former Director of the National Institutes of Allergy & Infectious Disease (NIAID) Anthony Fauci has largely faded from the headlines after a quick resurgence because of his spotlight in front of Congress, we should take this time to revisit some of the reasons why there are still controversies surrounding him. During the July 29 testimony, several liberal and pro-establishment content creators utilized their platforms to defend him (while pretending that they were not defending him because there was no wrongdoing to defend him against, but yet, they were taking out time from their other content to defend him) and argue that the science that he represented is being utilized as a political tool to distract the public from President Donald Trump’s failing agenda and to bolster Republicans’ chances in the midterm elections (yet, the Fauci news has not really gained any traction and will have largely zero effect on the elections). These people will defend Fauci just because they were conditioned to believe that he was the incarnated son of The Science and because what he preached was in opposition to the anti-lockdown policies of red states (both sides pretend that they are above the partisan politics, but they are not).
At the end of the day, Fauci represented the political elites during one of the most invasive periods in the history of civil liberties, and if we cannot even get an investigation to hold him accountable for his actions, there is little hope that the system itself can be trusted to further the interests of the American people. We should want to hold all of them accountable, including Fauci, Trump, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and George W. Bush. Everyone, both Republicans and Democrats, should be investigated equally.
Despite former President Joe Biden issuing a blank and partisan pardon of Fauci for all potential crimes committed from 2014 through 2024, essentially making the doctor completely above federal law; Senator Rand Paul, who has sparred with Fauci over mask mandates and vaccine royalties and gain-of-function research, was able to expose the fraud by showing how uncooperative the mad scientist was with answering questions from congressmen (refusing to even answer which day of the week it was or the color of his tie or the color of the floor in the building). Fauci claimed that Paul was on a witch hunt to get him “behind bars,” but having a federal pardon from Biden means that he cannot be prosecuted for his actions prior to 2025 (some go as far as to say that a pardon means that someone must testify because of the Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Walker of 1896). However, because perjury charges after January 19, 2025 (the exact date that the pardon covers through) can be brought forth based on current testimony, and since state charges do not apply to the pardon, Fauci is taking an abundance of caution in pleading the Fifth Amendment right to not self-incriminate himself. Although he has the right to invoke silence in this case, Congress has an obligation to conduct an investigation into the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, whether the results lead to prosecution of Fauci or not. Holding the doctor in contempt of Congress via the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s eight-to-five affirmative vote is only a symbolic move, as it will unlikely pass through the entire Senate or go anywhere in the end, and many of us want a full investigation into the corruption that took place during the lockdown era. Even if prosecutions are excluded due to pardons, the information needs to circulate amongst Americans so that we the people can decide what to do with it.
The testimony in front of Congress may not have led to any new information about the topic, but we do have evidence (despite what the pro-Fauci content creators say) to piece together a narrative of what occurred. Ardent defenders of the good doctor claim that science changes based on new results, so when Fauci said that masks were not necessary in March 2020 and then changed his mind to advocate for states and localities enforcing mask mandates, the flip flop was really to line up with the shifting data. But, if science changes on a regular basis because of new information, why were government officials so adamant about prohibiting the populace from being able to exercise freedoms if there was not enough data or repeated scientific trials (through the scientific method) to make those decisions (the virus was too new to have any conclusions made, and the scientific studies prior to the pandemic showed that masks did not prevent spread)? It is like our overlords were interested in stealing our freedom without proper evidence and then asked the questions and tested the hypotheses later.
Instead, proponents of Fauci will claim that we are anti-science, but these people do not even adhere to their own logic. The doctor had much influence, and many governments listened to and counted on his advice as guidance as to what to do, as he insisted that localities impose mask mandates with as much intensity as possible and ban holiday and public gatherings. To suggest that Fauci was simply an advisor to Presidents Trump and Biden and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) were the only ones actually issuing guidance for states to follow is absolutely absurd (yes, pro-Fauci commentators have been making this argument to water down Fauci’s role during the pandemic).
Even content creators online who want to argue that Fauci did not break the law must contend with the major ethical concerns over his actions. When a group of experts, including Stanford University’s Jay Bhattacharya, Oxford University’s Sunetra Gupta, and Harvard University’s Martin Kulldorff, signed on to the Great Barrington Declaration to advocate for herd immunity instead of strict lockdowns; Fauci collaborated with National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins to cause a “quick and devastating published takedown of its premises” (ironically, Bhattacharya became head of the NIH under President Trump). Yes, the good doctor attempted to manipulate the national narrative, even sending out opinion pieces in major outlets to discredit the “fringe” experts and dismiss the herd immunity idea, and terminate any serious scientific discussion on allowing people to move freely and practice their rights during the pandemic. Fauci was simply an advisor, huh? No, he actively worked to force people to stay home, and the conclusions after the pandemic was over showed that the lockdowns actually caused long-term consequences that devastated the economy and were not successful (and Sweden, which did not lock down, ended up with some of the lowest excess deaths in the long run).
It was not just mask and lockdown policies that Fauci attempted to influence. The origins of COVID-19 were debated early on, and he worked to make sure that there was censorship on the topic. Also, Rand Paul suggested that because Fauci controlled the funding at the NIH’s NIAID, scientists were intimidated and unable to oppose his dogmatic views for fear that the funding would be cut off. New emails from 2023 revealed that when it became clear that evidence for the lab leak theory was becoming undeniable, he initiated a scientific paper to be published in Nature Medicine in 2020 (signing off on its release) and then publicly pretended that he had nothing to do with it and that it was an independent paper showing that the virus originated naturally. Even the pro-Fauci content creators cannot deny that this was unethical and unscientific, and yet, they continue to push the idea that the mad scientist did nothing wrong.
The misconduct does not stop with academic dishonesty, though. Emails released in 2024 show that Fauci was aware of the actions of senior advisor to the NIAID, David Morens, who deleted records pertaining to the origins of the virus and NIH funding for coronavirus research to Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance ($600,000 of a $3 million grant were sent to Wuhan for experiments) in order to avoid Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests (even having people send information via private email so that there was nothing in the public records to be investigated). Though it is unknown if Fauci actively participated in the coverup, his advisor was arrested and charged with “conspiracy to defraud” the United States (it is difficult to believe that Fauci had no role in it or had no knowledge of what was going on).
Additionally, Fauci visited the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters, covertly and off the record, to sway opinion there about how the virus started, and this was further corroborated with the testimony of CIA whistleblower James Erdman III. Erdman claimed, in front of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, that Fauci provided “a conflicted list of curated subject matter experts, public health officials and scientists” to influence the Intelligence Community’s opinion on the matter (not just the CIA’s). Fauci not only was adamant that COVID-19 was a naturally-occurring virus, perhaps to escape legal responsibility for having caused a manmade virus that was released on the populace, but he attempted to manipulate the narrative across multiple fronts (media, academia, and within government agencies). Yet, the doctor was just an innocent proponent of scientific thought, right?
As I alluded to earlier, EcoHealth Alliance, which received funding from NIH (and perhaps $39 million from the Department of Defense for the coronavirus project in Wuhan, thus making the idea that COVID-19 was developed as a biological weapon in collaboration with China more plausible), did experiment on making novel bat coronaviruses transmissible to humans, and although Fauci likes to pretend that that does not meet the “legal” definition of gain-of-function research, such a denial is just playing semantics. Whether or not Fauci “legally” lied to Congress, he certainly misled it and displayed great dishonesty, and House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member James Comer (Kentucky) and House Committee on the Judiciary Ranking Member Jim Jordan (Ohio) issued statements acknowledging Fauci’s lying, manipulation, and knowledge of EcoHealth Alliance’s gain-of-function research. It is impossible to ignore Fauci’s wrongdoing, and those trying to cover up for him are doing a great disservice to themselves and their audiences.
We the people deserve answers and accountability for what happened to us during the pandemic, and Fauci escaping investigations and charges shows that the “system” is protecting those who participated in crimes against humanity (this is no different from the fact that everyone associated with the Jeffrey Epstein Files, including President Trump, will almost certainly escape responsibility). The institutions in place make it nearly impossible for anyone to be held accountable, unless the powers that be want a show-trial to mislead the public into thinking that there are not elites running the show from behind. It is naïve to think that these things happen naturally and that everything that occurs around us is just a series of coincidences that somehow always allow the rich and powerful to benefit while the poor and common peasants seem to forever pull the short stick. Although we cannot know the full extent of what happened with Fauci, we have enough evidence to piece together a reasonable story that shows that the doctor manipulated the situation for the official narrative to grow and helped cause one of the greatest wealth transfers in history and the destruction of our liberties.
Thank you for reading, and please check out my book, The Global Bully, and website.