Part Two Follow-Up│Public Health, Pardons, & Pleading the Fifth
On Wednesday, July 29th, former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, the undeniable face and voice of the COVID-19 pandemic, appeared before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Of particular interest to committee members and the public are documents presented by former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that indicate Fauci funded dangerous gain-of-function research that allegedly sparked the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak and subsequently suppressed that information with the help of leaders in the intelligence community, as well as Fauci’s so-called diary, a day-by-day record of events maintained on a government server that was recently discovered by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Although Fauci appeared before the committee under the protection of a presidential pardon, he invoked the Fifth Amendment 111 times during his testimony.
Despite his relative silence before the committee, the documents and diary speak volumes to the danger of allowing federal bureaucrats unchecked authority, especially in matters of public health. Communications indicate that Fauci knew in January 2021, within a month of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, that the vaccine was “compromised” and that variants would continually undermine its effectiveness. Yet for years afterward, he publicly promoted vaccine uptake and mandates for everyone, including children and pregnant women, despite the growing body of evidence of harm, including the risk of myocarditis.
In August 2022, Fauci noted that acknowledging the vaccine’s failure to protect against transmission and infection “would undermine the DoJ’s efforts at mandates for vaccines under certain circumstances.”
Additionally, the media’s often vitriolic response toward those who declined vaccination fueled division and discrimination, while never disclosing that “TV doctors” were getting talking points from Fauci. The diary entry below from September 2021 is one month after the CDC publicly acknowledged that the COVID-19 vaccines did not prevent transmission or infection, and the risk of myocarditis was well known, but in Fauci’s “mind,” “there is no reason not to vaccinate essentially everyone.”
These are just a few examples drawn from the hundreds of pages of documents released over the past month, but they underscore the seriousness of the mandates, the recklessness with which they were imposed, and the sweeping manner in which they were enforced throughout the country.
As Senator Rand Paul noted during contempt hearings on Thursday, August 6th:
“More than 1 million Americans died from Covid, many of them died alone. Workers were forced to choose between a mandate and a job they needed. Businesses closed and never reopened. Children lost years of school they will never get back. Americans lost the freedom to work, to worship, and to decide what went into their own bodies. Nothing we do today can undo those losses, but silence does not honor them either.”
Senator Paul is correct that nothing we do today will undo the terrible losses of the COVID era. Even if someone is eventually arrested or tried for COVID-era injustices, those who were harmed, the businesses that closed, the educational opportunities that were lost, and the constitutional liberties that were compromised cannot be restored. The question before us is not how to reclaim the past, but how to protect the future. If we are to preserve liberty for the next 250 years, the states must act on the lessons of the COVID era by passing the Medical Freedom Act.
The states are the constitutional safeguard against unchecked federal authority and the first line of defense for individual liberty.
For further information on this policy position and more, see our Guarding Liberty page, just for you. We stand ready to be a resource as you consider this critical legislation.
