I doubt anything comes of this, but seeing that imp exhaustedly repeating his 5th amendment rights and watching his hand shake when he first spoke was worth it. Crazy how narcissists melt when confronted.
"This precedent dates back to 1896 and the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Walker. In his majority opinion, Justice Henry Billings Brown found that if a '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.'"
That pardon only applies Federally. Fauci exposed to civil / sate lawsuits. Anything he says in hearing can and would be used against him in those civil trials. And why he invoked the 5th.
Good point, Matt! It would explain his taking the 5th at the hearing. His lawyers probably weighed the federal fallout from taking the 5th vs the state/civil fallout from Fauci telling everyone what a heinous bastard he really is.
In 2017, retired ambassador Keith Harper in the blog Just Security explained the conflict between the Fifth Amendment’s Self-Incrimination Clause and the president’s pardon powers. “Most likely [President Trump] has been informed of one important fact about his pardon power, anyone he pardons is no longer under criminal jeopardy for federal crimes and, accordingly, Fifth Amendment protection for self-incrimination evaporates,” Harper said.
This precedent dates back to 1896 and the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Walker. In his majority opinion, Justice Henry Billings Brown found that if a “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.” Brown cited cases dating back to English law and the Aaron Burr treason trial as supporting that conclusion.
A second Court decision, Burdick v. United States (1915), added another dimension to the question. George Burdick, a newspaper editor, published an article alleging misconduct at a customs house. Burdick asserted this Fifth Amendment rights in front of a grand jury, which was investigating a leak of information from the Treasury Department to the newspaper.
President Woodrow Wilson granted a full pardon to Burdick, even though Burdick was not charged with a crime. Wilson’s pardon may have been in an effort to compel Burdick to testify since Burdick could not “take the Fifth” if he received a pardon under the Brown precedent. Instead, Burdick refused to accept Wilson’s pardon, and then he was held in contempt when questioned again by Congress and cited the Fifth Amendment.
That was so in that case, but Rand Paul’s strategy was to catch him in a lie, so he could be prosecuted for a NEW offense, perjury. A pardon that pardons absolutely everything after the pardon is not a legitimate pardon; that would effectively give the person affected the right to break the law forever.
He would only be guilty of perjury during the time for which he was pardoned. He could tell the truth today without risk. That he decided to use the 5th is purely narcissism, he refused to admit he was wrong.
That’s true, but if today, instead of telling the truth (and I agree, he’s a narcissist, or worse), if he tells a lie that is shown to be a lie, it’s perjury, AFTER the time period of the [so-called] pardon. So he’s correct in not incriminating himself with a lie. Telling the truth I think is difficult for him.
I believe because Fauci's claim to the 5th is groundless, that would put him in contempt of Congress for invoking it, and his pardon does not cover that,
A lot of people think that, but I don’t agree. The pardon range of coverage ended in 2025, so any further lying (perjury) by Fauci is a NEW offense, not covered by that dubious pardon.
That's correct, but if he told the truth at the hearing, even if that truth was "Yes, I lied to Congress", he could not be prosecuted because his lying to Congress happened within the pardon date range.
That's the strange part. He could've admitted to being a serial killer - "Yeah, I cut her head off then had sex with it. So what?" - and still would've walked away a free man. Why didn't he just talk?
EDIT: He really could not admit to being a murderer, because that's a state offense not a federal one, but you get my point.
The U.S. Supreme Court confirmed the right to refuse a Presidential pardon in the 1915 case Burdick v. United States - ruling that a pardon is not effective if it is rejected and cannot be forced upon an individual.
Tony, however, accepted his pardon from Biden on Jan 19, 2025:
Isn't he just weighing the pain of having to possibly endure a brief period of confinement in a cushy minimum security setting (from which he would emerge even *more* of a saint, so far as his supporters are concerned) against making that other predicament *worse* ?? (i.e. a completely open-ended liability against countless individual and institutional plaintiffs that puts him in witness boxes for the rest of his life, generates infinite amount of additional negative press, and gobbles up every penny and scrap of property that is not covered by state homestead laws?
In other words he would be adding many tons of live ammunition to those bringing the lawsuit avalanche to his doorstep... he's be cross-examined on every word he said in his congressional testimony...
Maybe I am thinking about this all wrong, or in a dumb way. But that's how it strikes me.
I'm about to check out commentary from the two Matts, but did see Katherine Wu's appalling Atlantic essay which attempted to "pre-bunk" the hearings. She (and her editors) once again offered up a case study in why much of the legacy has no credibility and why independent outlets like Racket News has a subscription base. Wu came across as a pure partisan flak, albeit a sophisticated one; she offered not a simplistic whitewash, but a classic "limited hangout" as CIA insiders would put it. Oh, Anthony Fauci is far from perfect...he's a workaholic who can be demanding of his subordinates and he has a famous Italian temper. With that throat clearing out of the way, Wu leads the reader on a tour of Fauci's landmark career in public health, spiced up with quotes from his acolytes. Amazingly (NOT), her entire article never once mentioned the Proximal Origins fiasco, the Great Barrington Declaration, any assessment of charges that he lied or dissembled about masking, social distancing, or school closing. What a shame there are no credible Fauci critics she could have consulted! Predictably, she attributes the effort to get Fauci as a MAGA/MAHA vendetta...conveniently glossing over the fact that Rand Paul is in neither of those camps. MSM = Mendacious Smearing Media?
Generally speaking, American society imo is a society of betrayal. They don't mean or intend to betray, they actually mean what they say when they say it, but tomorrow is another day and they'll probably have something better to do, or maybe they just don't feel like they did yesterday. In other words, they're superficial so betrayal is almost inevitable.
Fauci's betrayal happened because the liberal system is based almost entirely on a superficial faith. It's always been a part of America, but faith overwhelmed sensibility with the liberals. Fauci and others were knighted, and then the libs walked away, secure in their belief that they did this, so it is good. It's like listing sexual assault as grounds for dismissal in the company handbook... Do you really think a guy that'd use his power to get sex from an underling cares about the friggin handbook? Same faith. They wrote it in a book, now they can walk away with a pat on the back and forget about it. Nope, only until the next time it happens.
That's how Anthony Fauci infected the entire human race with a disease probably of man's design, specifically designed to infect man, and unless those who care start paying attention, it is going to happen again. We should all breath a sigh of relief, and look at covid as a civil defense test. A test we failed miserably, but in failure there is knowledge. However, to use that knowledge requires admitting failure.
Get Local! That's my slogan for America. Screw Iran, Syria, Russia, Israel AND the US federal government! Get Local! Concern yourself with your neighborhood, your city, your state! Protect what you have close by, and keep an eye on it. DON'T pass an law, ordinance, dictum, and then walk away like something has changed! It doesn't work that way!
I did some digging. I remembered reading something early on in the pandemic about those things called "furin cleavage sites". What caught my attention back then was that they were described as a feature of a man-made virus, not something from nature. That caught my attention back then, because wtf?, but it seems that there are a variety of furin cleavage sites, and some scientist claim they do occur in nature, so no smoking gun there. However, the science should be evaluated. Maybe they "occur" in nature because people like Anthony Fauci say they do.
Matt, you should have done a drinking game where everyone had to take a shot every time Fauci said, "I refuse to answer...My lawyers...Fifth Amendment... We would have all been ripped by 8:38 in the morning.
Don't forget that Fauci is pleading the 5th, to avoid self-incrimination. That is the ONLY reason it's done, because it is almost an admission of guilt that has yet to be proven.
Thanks Matt & Matt! Good reporting! And a shout out to Dr. Matt Bivens for trying, and succeeding, to put a human face on Fauci. He's just another greedy, fame-seeking, narcissistic American that played loose and stupid, and when it finally caught up to him, he tried to schmooze his way out. He almost succeeded.
That was useful! Rand Paul comfortably told a story about what happened, and the main player in that story just sat there and nodded along with it. A guy who had total immunity, pun intended, who could've admitted to everything with an 'I'm sorry' and 'we screwed up', and 'it was someone else's fault'.
I love the image of Fauci as the face of everything that went wrong. The American who got rich building the perfect human eradicator, and then after it got loose, became obscenely rich and famous as the false idol combatting it, the Man who's going to save us all... (from his own creation, hehehehe!)
Btw... I certainly hope that the xerox copy pardons that all of the liberal criminals received, some apparently even for crimes against humanity, get a second look by someone. There has to be something criminal about that action.
Peter's response is actually exemplary of the democrat response to the mess they made. Forget about all the reasons, the mistakes, that caused the thing to happen, then complain about the way it's being fixed, and imply that the fixers are the real problem. I hope America has caught on by now to the liberal game, but my hopefulness lacks confidence.
I'm reminded of something Walter Kirn said during an ATW. His fist example of a liberal in his life was Meathead, a guy that freeloaded and mooched off of his in-laws while constantly bitching about the very system that feeds and shelters him.
Not a fan of Fauci, not a fan of Trump, but seems like we don't treat with respect the 80+-years old seniors who serve the pubic any more. Who in their right mind want to serve the country now and put themselves through all the humiliation, hatred, death threats, and even assassination attempts?
This sounds off piste for the circumstances surrounding this matter. There are patterns of behavior not to be overlooked and always more backstory than most want to acknowledge. Accumulation of wealth being one.
I agree with you that there are patterns of behavior that should not be overlooked. I just wonder how we could investigate anyone without insults and hatred. But that part is probably coming from our sensational biased media, which is phenomenal in its ability to turn everything into an ugly divorce.
" how we could investigate anyone without insults and hatred" -- you are correct the public square has devolved into such. I, too, wonder at the genesis & implications for it & how to restore mutual respect in discourse across wide swaths of the nation.
Anybody who craves attention, who has never been a celebrity before but goes gooey in their drawers at the prospect of a call with Babs Streisand, and isn't terribly concerned with whether the personal opinion he used to support his totalitarian recommendations to the secret police has a chance of being accurate or not. It's a tight Venn diagram, but it has member(s).
Watching Dems slurp at this guy’s pants leg is more than I can stomach🤮🤮🤮
I doubt anything comes of this, but seeing that imp exhaustedly repeating his 5th amendment rights and watching his hand shake when he first spoke was worth it. Crazy how narcissists melt when confronted.
Great job by Rick Scott. I loved his closing two comments.
ETA: Sen. Paul promised "consequences" for Fauci refusing to answer questions. Will be very interesting to find out what those turn out to be.
Not a fan of Fauci, but even he qualifies for the protection of the Fifth Amendment. So, there should be no “consequences.”
Actually, he doesn't. If you've been pardoned you can no longer invoke the 5th amendment, because you can't be charged for anything you say.
"This precedent dates back to 1896 and the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Walker. In his majority opinion, Justice Henry Billings Brown found that if a '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.'"
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/do-presidential-pardons-remove-the-fifth-amendment-rights-of-recipients
That pardon only applies Federally. Fauci exposed to civil / sate lawsuits. Anything he says in hearing can and would be used against him in those civil trials. And why he invoked the 5th.
Good point, Matt! It would explain his taking the 5th at the hearing. His lawyers probably weighed the federal fallout from taking the 5th vs the state/civil fallout from Fauci telling everyone what a heinous bastard he really is.
You might want to check from my link:
In 2017, retired ambassador Keith Harper in the blog Just Security explained the conflict between the Fifth Amendment’s Self-Incrimination Clause and the president’s pardon powers. “Most likely [President Trump] has been informed of one important fact about his pardon power, anyone he pardons is no longer under criminal jeopardy for federal crimes and, accordingly, Fifth Amendment protection for self-incrimination evaporates,” Harper said.
This precedent dates back to 1896 and the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Walker. In his majority opinion, Justice Henry Billings Brown found that if a “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.” Brown cited cases dating back to English law and the Aaron Burr treason trial as supporting that conclusion.
A second Court decision, Burdick v. United States (1915), added another dimension to the question. George Burdick, a newspaper editor, published an article alleging misconduct at a customs house. Burdick asserted this Fifth Amendment rights in front of a grand jury, which was investigating a leak of information from the Treasury Department to the newspaper.
President Woodrow Wilson granted a full pardon to Burdick, even though Burdick was not charged with a crime. Wilson’s pardon may have been in an effort to compel Burdick to testify since Burdick could not “take the Fifth” if he received a pardon under the Brown precedent. Instead, Burdick refused to accept Wilson’s pardon, and then he was held in contempt when questioned again by Congress and cited the Fifth Amendment.
We’ll soon find out what Senator Paul’s next move is. This isn’t over for the doctor.
Neither of the doctors, as it appears.
That was so in that case, but Rand Paul’s strategy was to catch him in a lie, so he could be prosecuted for a NEW offense, perjury. A pardon that pardons absolutely everything after the pardon is not a legitimate pardon; that would effectively give the person affected the right to break the law forever.
Fauci lies?
Who wudda thunk?
He would only be guilty of perjury during the time for which he was pardoned. He could tell the truth today without risk. That he decided to use the 5th is purely narcissism, he refused to admit he was wrong.
That’s true, but if today, instead of telling the truth (and I agree, he’s a narcissist, or worse), if he tells a lie that is shown to be a lie, it’s perjury, AFTER the time period of the [so-called] pardon. So he’s correct in not incriminating himself with a lie. Telling the truth I think is difficult for him.
I believe because Fauci's claim to the 5th is groundless, that would put him in contempt of Congress for invoking it, and his pardon does not cover that,
Bingo. Contempt is jailable. The martydom vibes would be so so precious.
A lot of people think that, but I don’t agree. The pardon range of coverage ended in 2025, so any further lying (perjury) by Fauci is a NEW offense, not covered by that dubious pardon.
That's correct, but if he told the truth at the hearing, even if that truth was "Yes, I lied to Congress", he could not be prosecuted because his lying to Congress happened within the pardon date range.
That's the strange part. He could've admitted to being a serial killer - "Yeah, I cut her head off then had sex with it. So what?" - and still would've walked away a free man. Why didn't he just talk?
EDIT: He really could not admit to being a murderer, because that's a state offense not a federal one, but you get my point.
Fauci is open to civil / state lawsuits now, and this is one of reasons he took the 5th all day long.
Standing legal precedent would seem to suggest he can't now shield himself behind the 5th Amendment.
The U.S. Supreme Court confirmed the right to refuse a Presidential pardon in the 1915 case Burdick v. United States - ruling that a pardon is not effective if it is rejected and cannot be forced upon an individual.
Tony, however, accepted his pardon from Biden on Jan 19, 2025:
https://www.justice.gov/pardon/media/1385746/dl?inline
Which means he should not be able to invoke the 5th Amendment?
This should go before SCOTUS. To define 5th Amendment stipulations if an individual accepts a POTUS pardon.
And while they are at it, SCOTUS can also address the Constitutionality of a a ‘pre-pardon’, which feels like an undemocratic abomination.
Isn't he just weighing the pain of having to possibly endure a brief period of confinement in a cushy minimum security setting (from which he would emerge even *more* of a saint, so far as his supporters are concerned) against making that other predicament *worse* ?? (i.e. a completely open-ended liability against countless individual and institutional plaintiffs that puts him in witness boxes for the rest of his life, generates infinite amount of additional negative press, and gobbles up every penny and scrap of property that is not covered by state homestead laws?
In other words he would be adding many tons of live ammunition to those bringing the lawsuit avalanche to his doorstep... he's be cross-examined on every word he said in his congressional testimony...
Maybe I am thinking about this all wrong, or in a dumb way. But that's how it strikes me.
I was wondering about potential civil lawsuits. Good comment.
Watching Fauci get humiliated again and again and again on the stand is fun, but not enough.
I'm about to check out commentary from the two Matts, but did see Katherine Wu's appalling Atlantic essay which attempted to "pre-bunk" the hearings. She (and her editors) once again offered up a case study in why much of the legacy has no credibility and why independent outlets like Racket News has a subscription base. Wu came across as a pure partisan flak, albeit a sophisticated one; she offered not a simplistic whitewash, but a classic "limited hangout" as CIA insiders would put it. Oh, Anthony Fauci is far from perfect...he's a workaholic who can be demanding of his subordinates and he has a famous Italian temper. With that throat clearing out of the way, Wu leads the reader on a tour of Fauci's landmark career in public health, spiced up with quotes from his acolytes. Amazingly (NOT), her entire article never once mentioned the Proximal Origins fiasco, the Great Barrington Declaration, any assessment of charges that he lied or dissembled about masking, social distancing, or school closing. What a shame there are no credible Fauci critics she could have consulted! Predictably, she attributes the effort to get Fauci as a MAGA/MAHA vendetta...conveniently glossing over the fact that Rand Paul is in neither of those camps. MSM = Mendacious Smearing Media?
Did they ask Fauci who won the 2020 election?
Generally speaking, American society imo is a society of betrayal. They don't mean or intend to betray, they actually mean what they say when they say it, but tomorrow is another day and they'll probably have something better to do, or maybe they just don't feel like they did yesterday. In other words, they're superficial so betrayal is almost inevitable.
Fauci's betrayal happened because the liberal system is based almost entirely on a superficial faith. It's always been a part of America, but faith overwhelmed sensibility with the liberals. Fauci and others were knighted, and then the libs walked away, secure in their belief that they did this, so it is good. It's like listing sexual assault as grounds for dismissal in the company handbook... Do you really think a guy that'd use his power to get sex from an underling cares about the friggin handbook? Same faith. They wrote it in a book, now they can walk away with a pat on the back and forget about it. Nope, only until the next time it happens.
That's how Anthony Fauci infected the entire human race with a disease probably of man's design, specifically designed to infect man, and unless those who care start paying attention, it is going to happen again. We should all breath a sigh of relief, and look at covid as a civil defense test. A test we failed miserably, but in failure there is knowledge. However, to use that knowledge requires admitting failure.
Get Local! That's my slogan for America. Screw Iran, Syria, Russia, Israel AND the US federal government! Get Local! Concern yourself with your neighborhood, your city, your state! Protect what you have close by, and keep an eye on it. DON'T pass an law, ordinance, dictum, and then walk away like something has changed! It doesn't work that way!
I did some digging. I remembered reading something early on in the pandemic about those things called "furin cleavage sites". What caught my attention back then was that they were described as a feature of a man-made virus, not something from nature. That caught my attention back then, because wtf?, but it seems that there are a variety of furin cleavage sites, and some scientist claim they do occur in nature, so no smoking gun there. However, the science should be evaluated. Maybe they "occur" in nature because people like Anthony Fauci say they do.
Matt, you should have done a drinking game where everyone had to take a shot every time Fauci said, "I refuse to answer...My lawyers...Fifth Amendment... We would have all been ripped by 8:38 in the morning.
Don't forget that Fauci is pleading the 5th, to avoid self-incrimination. That is the ONLY reason it's done, because it is almost an admission of guilt that has yet to be proven.
Thanks Matt & Matt! Good reporting! And a shout out to Dr. Matt Bivens for trying, and succeeding, to put a human face on Fauci. He's just another greedy, fame-seeking, narcissistic American that played loose and stupid, and when it finally caught up to him, he tried to schmooze his way out. He almost succeeded.
That was useful! Rand Paul comfortably told a story about what happened, and the main player in that story just sat there and nodded along with it. A guy who had total immunity, pun intended, who could've admitted to everything with an 'I'm sorry' and 'we screwed up', and 'it was someone else's fault'.
I love the image of Fauci as the face of everything that went wrong. The American who got rich building the perfect human eradicator, and then after it got loose, became obscenely rich and famous as the false idol combatting it, the Man who's going to save us all... (from his own creation, hehehehe!)
Btw... I certainly hope that the xerox copy pardons that all of the liberal criminals received, some apparently even for crimes against humanity, get a second look by someone. There has to be something criminal about that action.
Waste of time to hate Fauci. He is a pawn of the Darkness and only followed orders.
He is also protected because of it.
Peter's response is actually exemplary of the democrat response to the mess they made. Forget about all the reasons, the mistakes, that caused the thing to happen, then complain about the way it's being fixed, and imply that the fixers are the real problem. I hope America has caught on by now to the liberal game, but my hopefulness lacks confidence.
I'm reminded of something Walter Kirn said during an ATW. His fist example of a liberal in his life was Meathead, a guy that freeloaded and mooched off of his in-laws while constantly bitching about the very system that feeds and shelters him.
Not a fan of Fauci, not a fan of Trump, but seems like we don't treat with respect the 80+-years old seniors who serve the pubic any more. Who in their right mind want to serve the country now and put themselves through all the humiliation, hatred, death threats, and even assassination attempts?
This sounds off piste for the circumstances surrounding this matter. There are patterns of behavior not to be overlooked and always more backstory than most want to acknowledge. Accumulation of wealth being one.
I agree with you that there are patterns of behavior that should not be overlooked. I just wonder how we could investigate anyone without insults and hatred. But that part is probably coming from our sensational biased media, which is phenomenal in its ability to turn everything into an ugly divorce.
" how we could investigate anyone without insults and hatred" -- you are correct the public square has devolved into such. I, too, wonder at the genesis & implications for it & how to restore mutual respect in discourse across wide swaths of the nation.
Anybody who craves attention, who has never been a celebrity before but goes gooey in their drawers at the prospect of a call with Babs Streisand, and isn't terribly concerned with whether the personal opinion he used to support his totalitarian recommendations to the secret police has a chance of being accurate or not. It's a tight Venn diagram, but it has member(s).