Anthony Fauci was named Time Magazine's "Guardian of the Year" in 2020. The head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was being feted from one end of the country to another for his work during the early stages of the pandemic.
Fauci became the face of the government's response to the pandemic. He initiated a series of policies that are now seen as useless or worse than useless. Mask mandates, social distancing, and other pandemic policies that were never backed by good science in the first place became the "scientific" answer to dealing with the pandemic.
Now, after years of investigations and revelations, Fauci's halo has come somewhat unscrewed thanks to the revelations about gain of function research at the Wuhan lab that he authorized — research he still refuses to call "gain of function" despite its close similarity to it — as well as leaked emails revealing he was less than truthful about many aspects of COVID origins.
In fact, Fauci denied he ever dismissed the lab leak theory of the coronavirus origin despite evidence to the contrary.
Fauci did not start the pandemic. Even if he helped fund research into ways to make the coronavirus more contagious, he is not responsible for the incompetent boobs at the Wuhan lab who may or may not be liable for allowing a dangerous pathogen to leak into the wild.
Nor is he responsible for developing ineffective methods to prevent the transmission of the virus. Masks and social distancing were invented by clueless health bureaucrats at the CDC.
What he's responsible for is a lack of honesty in doing his job. He was the president's science advisor and was supposed to be the public face of public health efforts to keep as many people as possible safe. He failed at that. And many Americans are just starting to see it.
Should he go to jail for that?
We should also agree that calls to imprison Fauci are, at best, premature. He has not been convicted of any crime; moreover, his misguided pandemic policies are not prosecutable. Critics are right to call out his ever-shifting opinions on the efficacy of masks, his downplaying of post-infection immunity vs. vaccine-related protection, and his six-feet social distancing guidance, which he now admits had little scientific basis and was essentially invented on the spot. Government officials who propose bad policies should be voted out of office or fired as appropriate. They cannot be jailed, however.
Fauci's role in the alleged lab leak cover-up is a different matter. As Reason's Christian Britschgi documented in his write-up of the hearing, it is now well-established that Fauci's straightforward denial to Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) regarding U.S. funding of gain-of-function research was at best misleading—and potentially an outright lie. (Lying to Congress is, in fact, a crime.) David Morens, a top Fauci deputy, has admitted to thwarting journalistic inquiries by making certain emails invisible to Freedom of Information Act requests. There are serious questions about whether Fauci pushed scientific experts in his orbit to embrace the natural spillover explanation of COVID-19's origins, possibly because the lab leak explanation would have invited greater scrutiny of U.S. health bureaucrats and their research priorities. I interviewed Paul this week about Fauci's role in suppressing the lab leak theory, and he stated that he's come to believe the National Institutes of Health are "more secretive than the CIA."
Perjury, especially congressional perjury, is hard to prove. Fauci has been saying time and again in hearings when challenged about "gain of function" research that what he authorized did not meet the definition of "gain of function" even though much of the research and experiments performed did exactly that.
It's a fine line that will probably keep him out of jail.
Anyone who bothers to inform themselves of the "after COVID" Fauci will realize that this guy is no saint. He's a public health bureaucrat who I believe was out of his depth in being made the public face of the government's efforts to deal with the pandemic.
It appears that more and more people are realizing the same thing.
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