Dr. Fauci's Catch-22

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Transcript:

Because we live in the stupidest timeline, last week the politicians who are meant to represent the interests of us, the American public, spent their time yelling at a retired 85-year old man who did everything he could to save lives during a global pandemic six entire fucking years ago.

You may have missed this event if you aren’t anywhere near the rightwing lunatic echo chamber. As Wesley Craft points out over at Magnitude Media, conservatives engaged in a coordinated social media campaign to absolutely flood the internet with clips and, naturally, stupid lies, about Fauci, with one out of every five rightwing posts mentioning him. I don’t even post about my own dog that much, and look at how cute and perfect he is. Benny Johnson posting about Anthony Fauci 75 times in one day should result in an immediate, no-questions-asked lifetime restraining order.

So anyway, if you DID miss all this, essentially it was the work of a few conservative Congresscritters but helmed by Rand Paul, who actually has a medical degree but is so capital-L-Libertarian that he would have happily let an extra few million people die rather than stay inside his house and wear a mask for a little while. Accordingly, he flushed all his medical knowledge down the toilet and walked around spreading blatant disinformation about the COVID vaccine, like telling people that you don’t need it if you’ve already been infected with the virus. You can really tell that being a Libertarian is the most important thing in his life, since he’s doing all this despite the fact that he went to medical school and should know better, and despite the fact that he has admitted to being vaccinated in the past, and despite the fact that he clearly believes in other COVID treatments because his own wife bought stock in Gilead in February of 2020.

Rand Paul has been hating on Dr. Fauci throughout the 2020s, repeatedly calling for his prosecution and imprisonment because he, let’s see, oh yeah because Fauci examined the science and recommended that politicians take action to quarantine people and provide them with masks and vaccines in order to reduce the loss of life. “But wait,” you may be thinking, “that’s not illegal. It’s not illegal in the United States to understand science and recommend that someone take an action based on that science.”

And you’d be right! And I think Rand Paul also knows you’re right, and so he has decided to try his best to find something that someone COULD reasonably prosecute Dr. Fauci for.

In a stroke of luck, Paul recently got his little mitts on Fauci’s private diary. And by “luck” I mean serious detective work. According to worm-ridden Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., some of Fauci’s notes were saved on government servers, and so he spent our tax dollars on an EIGHT MONTH LONG investigation that eventually turned up such groundbreaking information like how Fauci thinks Peter Navarro is an asshole.

By the way, I guess Ron Paul’s Libertarianism doesn’t extend to an individual’s right to have a private diary. Just a thought.

So, there’s nothing in Fauci’s diary that suggests he did anything illegal, nor that he did anything unethical. Just as we’ve always known, he followed the science as a chaotic situation unfolded, devised policy recommendations that fit with the science, and got constantly screamed at and threatened for doing so.

But Rand Paul used the diary as an excuse to force Fauci to testify before the committee Paul chairs: the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Fauci showed up as ordered but in response to every question, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, 111 times over the course of three hours. What was he afraid of being incriminated for? Well, let your imagination run wild. A vaguely incorrect answer to a completely innocuous question issued by a hostile interviewer could be interpreted to be a lie, and it’s a crime to lie to Congress, so blammo, now Fauci has to go to court to explain why he said something happened on a Saturday instead of a Sunday.

But here’s where things get interesting, if not a little frustrating: immediately following Fauci’s non-testimony, the committee held a vote to hold him in contempt for not answering the questions. The measure passed along party lines, with the Republicans obviously voting for contempt.

Contempt is a criminal offense, and the penalty is a fine of up to $100,000 and up to a year in prison.

“But wait,” you’re all asking, “what about Fauci’s Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination? Isn’t that, like…a right? In the Constitution?”

I’ve seen this question all over the place, with nearly everyone handwaving away the charge of contempt as obviously unconstitutional. But, it’s kind of maybe not.

This is not a law channel and I am not a lawyer, but Rand Paul and the Republicans are claiming that in this case, Fauci does NOT have a Fifth Amendment right because he cannot incriminate himself. Why? Because Joe Biden already pardoned him.

That’s right: the very act that was meant to protect Fauci from malicious prosecution is now being cited as the reason for the prosecution. If you’ve received a pardon, you do not have any fear of incrimination, and thus legally you are expected to answer the question.

I’m so sorry that Joseph Heller isn’t alive to witness this. I know a lot of people use “Catch-22,” which he coined in his book of the same name, to mean “no-win situation.” But in the book, which is excellent by the way and everyone should read it, it’s specifically a circular problem that is the end result of insipid bureaucracy. The primary example in the book involves fighter pilots: the only way to get out of flying dangerous missions is to claim you’re insane, but not wanting to fly dangerous missions is in itself evidence for sanity.

This idea of using Fauci’s pardon to try to convict him for contempt is exactly that same sort of bureaucratic dystopia.

The good news is that many experts seem to think Paul isn’t going to get too far with this. Fauci took the 5th because the pardon wasn’t bulletproof: it only covered actions he took between January 1, 2014, and January 19, 2025. Presidential pardon also only work for federal crimes, so he could still be prosecuted at the state level, which is why three state attorneys general have already filed subpoenas on him.

And Rand Paul himself has managed to fuck this all up in several ways. First, he spent literally years screaming on TV that he wanted to prosecute Fauci for anything, which sets up Fauci to be able to show malice.

Even better, Paul was so excited to get the Justice Department to go after Fauci immediately that he sent the referral to them before bothering to bring the issue before Congress, which is the normal procedure for this kind of thing.

And then there’s the question of whether or not the Justice Department actually decides to move forward with a case, considering two major factors: first of all, can they find 23 people in Washington, D.C. who will indict him, and second of all, does Donald Trump really want to open up a discussion on presidential pardons.

So hopefully none of this goes anywhere and eventually Republicans find a new toy to play with, but in the meanwhile it sucks that they’re just harassing an old man who should be laying on a beach somewhere, not beefing up security in anticipation of some Q-anon-brained psycho trying to snipe his family.

Dr. Fauci's Catch-22 (YouTube)