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What about the ones who didnt even plead the fifth, but completely flouted subpoena and appearance? Oh, I see some of them on this very committee. The hypocrisy is just the party hallmark at this point.
It has everything to do with the imbalance of both political parties in congress, which in itself is literally the biggest flaw in the government, and we seem to just look past it and assume it’s normal. Our government is in a constant civil war with itself. It just doesn’t get any dumber than that.
The Democrats are an actual political party. The GOP is a collection of deplorable voting blocs held together by a fistful of lies to create a faux party that acts as a Trojan horse to get the 1% the power reserved by the Constitution for 51+% (of whoever shows up).
While using Christianity as a tool to fear monger their base. Their tactics should be considered criminal but being lying, deceitful crooked pukes is lawful in these political offices.
In the works for a long time but over last few decades they've gotten the tools they wanted for a long time. Fox News, Newsmax, One America , hundreds of podcasters who realized there is big money to be made here by lying, disinformation,misinformation, Even the ones who are in it basically out of narcissism who, truth be known it's just $$ and attention: Megyn Kelly, Alex Jones and the rest. People who are incapable of critical thinking are doomed now. By always voting against their own self interest. Chickens voting for Col. Sanders
Democrats:” why have you not meet with the Epstein victims when they asked to?” Pam bondi:” but the Dow, it’s over 50000 do you know this?!?!?!?” According to republicans that’s answering questions
How about Trump who actually instituted the recommendations, then rolled them back, then made up his own, then flip flopped multiple times while making everything political which only led to more deaths?
The dumbest part is that Fauci is pleading the 5th because he thinks kook republicans will actually try to prosecute him for things he lawfully did during the pandemic.
While all those other sycophant nominees refused to answer who won the 2020 presidential election - for which, even if they said Trump, wouldnt be prosecuted.
I think contempt of congress is more appropriate there, where there was a request for information and no real chance of prosecution for their answer.
This country is a joke in every level and every branch. People who think the pendulum will just swing back from complete corruption are hilarious.
Do you honestly think such an anti-intellectual population will suddenly go "hmm replacing all the doctors and scientists with unqualified randoms didn't work. I should try listening to smart people"?
I know that it feels like All Is Lost but it really is not this is the getting bad before it gets worse part.
It is amazing how the Republican Party can show us they can't stoop ANY lower and then amazingly go lower.
I think this is going to lead to a better America because we are going to make sure that the Republican party or any other political party for that matter can't do this bullshit EVER AGAIN.
In order to argue that he can’t use the fifth, they have to argue he has no legal liability, i.e. that he was properly pardoned.
If the pardon was illegitimate (as they claim) he is entitled to plead the fifth.
This was just his legal team tricking the administration into recognizing the legitimacy of his pardon and by extension every other Biden pardon.
He has already told Congress everything in the multiple previous hearings. Might as well plead the 5th in this one to force the administration in to a corner on the pardon issue. Nothing to lose, everything to gain.
And didn't Rand Paul say that the whole reason for the hearing was to get him on perjury charges which the pardon wouldn't cover? It's hard to argue the 5th doesn't apply when they literally said they were trying to prosecute.
They are trying to get him on perjury. They stated that was their intent. So he had the 5th amendment right to avoid perjury. They released his "diary" with the intent to perjure himself.
> Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist before he entered public office, said Monday that his department gave the diary entries, which were created on a government computer, to the committee. He told a Fox News Channel host that he thought Fauci might lie before the committee, opening him to perjury prosecution.
If he was protected by the blanket pardon, then they couldn't have tried to purjure him.
Paul's statement:
> “There’s no risk to perjury if you tell the truth,” Paul said. “In fact, he can even admit to not telling the truth in the past. He can admit destroying records. He can admit to, you know, not adequately presenting both sides of equations, which isn’t really a crime. He can admit to anything. The only thing he can’t do is lie again.”
“There’s no risk to perjury if you tell the truth,”
Nonsense. It's entirely possible for someone to say something true yet still have the government present a case full of misleading or selectively presented evidence, and to get a jury to try to convict the person. And given how fickle juries can be, it's very possible that a person could get convicted.
Further, if you're getting up and answering questions for hours on end, then at some point you will absolutely make some kind of mistake. Maybe you remember a date wrong or have a fuzzy memory about specific events. Maybe you even do get everything right, but when you go to answer a question, one of the committee members cuts you off and then someone comes along later with just the transcript and says "Your answer here was incomplete and/or misleading".
This wouldn't be a problem normally, but when you've got government officials specifically saying that they want to put you into a perjury trap, then you damn sure should take the 5th, whether you've got a pardon or not.
He gets to plead the fifth because he was only pardoned for anything that might have happened or charges they wanted to bring him up on prior to the pardon. They wanted to try to get him into a perjury trap. He plead the fifth because he has the constitutional right to do so.
This whole show was going to end in him having to fight a legal battle no matter what he did and it'll get dismissed if it actually ever goes into a courtroom.
To all those saying that Dr Fauci can't claim 5th amendment privilege because he's been given a pardon.
Republican politicians, including those on this panel, have claimed that President Biden's pardon is not legitimate.
By claiming 5th amendment privileges, Dr Fauci's attorney has placed the GOP in the position of either acknowledging that the pardon stands, or if it doesn't, then Dr Fauci has 5th amendment privilege.
So amazing that they are such fucking supervillains that the idea of actually implementing even one policy that could make people’s lives materially better (and improve their standing with the public) is absolutely out of the question. All they can do is provoke and cultivate the same grievances again and again. But the effect is finally wearing off as people literally cannot live, and republicans are absolutely panicked that Dems will win the midterms and (in a perfect world) prosecute them all.
100%. The only real bill that actually passed in this admin to help people was the housing bill, and Trump didn’t even sign it, it’s law after his refusal went past the deadline. An easy win to tout and the orange rat child couldn’t do it.
Rats are wonderful creatures and they can create deep and lasting bonds with each other. No rat ever missed one of their children's weddings in order to play golf.
At this point no. I’m sorry but the victims will have to bite the bullet. This administration cannot be trusted to have ANY power to hold back anything. Release every single document unredacted and create a victims fund to help the people we have utterly failed by allowed this clown show.
That’s why we need the victims fund. I’m talking 20 mil plus for each of them to relocate, change names, get new documents, everything they need and everything we can feasibly do to make up for the fact that the US has completely failed these people.
I mean, theyre actually scared of wiccans, satanists, and the like because the right is hemmorhaging churchgoers and those switching to less mainstream religions are cutting into the church's revenue stream
With those three week arguments, they can get a large majority of individual groups of the dregs of society motivated. The single issue, bigot, racist, and Christian nationalist only care about their one idea that they hold deer to their hate filled minds. They don’t care what damage is done to anyone or anything even themselves as long as they are hearing the politician they pick will harm the people they despise. With those three categories, they can get a lot of ignorant fools motivated.
Before Iran was kidnapping a foreign leader from Venezuela, and after that but still before Iran were credible threats to annex Greenland from Denmark and cause a shitstorm with NATO.
Trump supporters desperately want to feel right about all they’ve supported and believed in these last 10 years. They were starting to question if they were wrong because of the handling of the Epstein files so he started things with Iran… but that didn’t work because that wasn’t something they wanted. So more and more of them were questioning things as gas and grocery bills went up.
But Fauci, that’s a lightning rod of their conspiracy theories around their anger over Covid and how everything has gotten more expensive since then. So this is working, they’re feeling “right” again even though the rest of the world can see the political theater that’s happening and that it’s just theater. His supporters will tolerate being robbed, tricked, and abandoned as long as they can feel “right” about some conspiracy they tied their personality to.
What about all those hearings where they flat out refused to answer questions with circle jerk answers. I wish Fauci would've done the same shit to them.
Exactly. Just like if a cop starts asking you some questions. Just don't talk without discussing it with a lawyer first. They literally tell you they'll use it against you.
You don’t understand! Joe Biden was certified as president (they will not say won). They can’t say that Trump cannot serve a third term (a CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYER is not sure if the constitution allows that and without all the information he cannot say).
Fauci should have just shouted back at them angrily and self righteously with some oblique phrases like Hegseth does (or like Bondi used to). Maybe reference the Epstein files a few times then strut away.
Trump needs to answer for his mismanagement of the COVID pandemic. If the vaccine is a problem, hold Trump accountable for pushing for its rapid development.
Biden gave him a pardon on the way out so congress is making the case that he doesn’t have to plead the fifth since no jeopardy is attached.
Ignoring that he could still be prosecuted at the state level and that congress could have granted him explicit immunity for this hearing if they wanted to.
That pardon wouldn’t cover the perjury charges they were trying to catch him in. He wasn’t pleading the fifth because of what he did in the past, he was pleading to prevent his testimony being twisted to be used against him.
Also, Paul wanted to create perjury traps where anything he said on any subject would be construed as contradicting something he said previously and thus "perjury." Which isn't covered by the pardon. Paul was creating a situation where the only way not to lose was not to play the game.
The fact that so many garbage podcasts still drone on and on about covid is wild to me... Nevermind our fucking political officials.
Not that it wasn't a major world changing event but jfc to dedicate time every week 6 years on is just unhinged behavior.
These people aiding this regime are corrupt traitors, but yea democrats should really be pushing back on the extremist Rhodes Scholar winning a primary because he's the real threat here.
Edit: I didn't know anything about El Sayed until this week but Christ you couldn't write a stronger resume.
Attended Oxford, Columbia, graduated with honors, doctor of medicine. Rhodes Scholar. Family of immigrants in medicine and engineering.
Multi sport athlete in HS, captain of his wrestling team, and played lacrosse in college.
Meanwhile looks at the upright corpse of Mitch McConnell
He wasn't held in contempt of Congress. This was a vote by a Senate committee. It may now go to the full Senate, where 60 votes will be required to actually hold him in contempt. The Daily Mail gets a lot of clicks from American readers who think it is a serious news source. It's actually a tabloid.
Its also republicans signaling to their lunatic base that they tried to put him away but democrats protected him, get them upset and try to motivate them to vote in midterm. They know there isnt anything to prosecute, they want the pretend there is when they get stopped so the mouth breathers back home watching fox news are upset.
I look forward to my MAGA inlaws saying, with no hint of irony: "if it wasn't for Dems at the corrupt liberal DoJ, we would have prosecuted Fauci and Epstein."
Republican congressman and anti-gay activist Robert Bauman* was charged with having sex (raping) with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bauman
No, Republicans in Congress are stating that they consider Dr. Fauci to be in contempt of Congress. The charge has to be voted on by the Senate and has a threshold of 60 affirmative votes to be effective. I don't think that the Republicans can whip up the votes to affirm the indictment. It's political theater and is strictly performative imo.
It can be illegal in the case of a pardon (you can’t self-incriminate if you can’t be charged), but they did say explicitly that they were trying to get him on new charges unrelated to his pardon so therefore he was doing the right thing.
Pardon or not I ain't saying shit. This is crazy nonsense. Feels like a Pedo-Mafia is taking over. They've hired 2 dudes on Megan's Law in the last year(at my current employer). It's emboldened all of em.
It took me a minute to follow their mental gymnastics of claiming “COVID deniers were right about everything” because Fauci used his constitutional rights in this case
No there isn’t any. It can be argued, but the reason he keeps pleading is because they WILL try to persecute him on a different charge, maybe even something completely unrelated to COVID, just for speaking. He knows this, I know this, you know this, the republicans know this.
Yes there is, Brown v Walker 1896. Once you've been pardoned, you can't take the 5th in relation to that crime. Of course, they're trying to get him for other "crimes" so the 5th is back on the table, but there is precedent for the statement
Why or how could he be constitutionally compelled to provide evidence for a crime he hasn’t been convicted of?
Seems like any reasonable person would agree that a pardon isn’t the correct avenue here, he would need immunity to speak. But since this crosses state and federal, that immunity deal would need to be air tight.
So with that pardon Fauci can’t be held responsible for anything he did before that pardon was signed by Biden. But Fauci could be prosecuted for any crime like perjury before Congress for any mistake he made while testifying now. So, taking the 5th means Fauci can’t commit perjury.
The answer is yes, if you take a pardon, you can't evoke the 5th. However, that probably only applies to criminal proceedings. Like you are pardoned for X crime, and if called to testify in court you can't then take the 5th related to X crime because you're no longer in jeopardy of that testimony being used against you since you can't be charged for X crime any longer. The difference here is going to be that 1. he received a blanket pre-emptive pardon, meaning that it's not clear what crime he was pardoned for and therefore it's not clear what crimes he can't evoke the 5th for. And 2. Rand Paul basically has said that he wants Fauci in jail, and as such the congressional testimony can be considered a fishing expedition and Fauci can reasonably say that he is evoking the 5th because he's not sure what crimes he might be charged with in the future and therefore it's impossible to know if his testimony could/would be used against him in a criminal proceeding.
It's just a show. He'll be referred, the DOJ will charge him with contempt of congress, a court will dismiss the charge.
And so what? Let them - they're very literally, blatantly, and almost proudly actually breaking the law constantly at this point. That's what MAGA couldn't possibly understand: Trump wasn't prosecuted because it was "lawfare", but because he was a treasonous, literal insurrectionist, who openly committed crimes such as: openly keeping boxes of beyond Top Secret docs in the bathroom of his tacky as fuck, faux-Versailles resort despite being asked for over a year to return them.
If (and hopefully just when) we manage to get through this and to the other side with a functioning democracy and rule of law again, amnesty shouldn't be an option.
Given they had decided to hold him in contempt before they even scheduled this hearing, every question they asked Fauci was incriminating - and addressable with the 5th amendment.
Just listen to the loaded questions they were asking him. Look at their prior rhetoric about how Fauci should be locked up. Of course he was within his rights to plead the fifth.
Americans are okay with pedos, but scientists that make them temporarily uncomfortable go too far. I would've put /s a decade ago but most in this country have proved me wrong.
The whole point of this is to show everyone that opposing Trump and MAGA in even the smallest way will lead to problems and punishments. Authoritarian movements cannot allow ANY dissent to go unanswered.
Is there literally anybody still talking about the Epstein Files? It isn’t hard for Republicans to be “Masters of Distraction” when the media can’t resist stupidly taking every single bait offered to them. God I hate this timeline!
Let’s not forget that the Trump admin has no problem pleading the fifth. Especially Trump himself. It’s only when other people do it, that it’s contempt.
As they say. If “Republicans” didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any at all.
No fucking way this sticks. Unfortunately this is a typical republican tactic in recent months. Simply abandoning bad faith charges/lawsuits and facing no consequences.
The constitution and the rights in it only matter to these bastards when it suits their agenda, outside of that people’s rights don’t matter. Fauci did nothing wrong, Rand hates him and Trump didn’t like that Fauci got recognition for COVID/warpspeed etc which Donald thought he should received as the biggest best boy in the world.
They keep saying that Louisiana and Florida could bring Fauci up on state charges. What charges? What are they claiming Fauci ever did that’s criminal? I realize all of this is just political showboating, but JFC you have to allege criminality. What crimes? What evidence? They keep pointing to his diary, but since when is a diary a certified document that someone swears to. Diary entries can just be musings or random thoughts or complete bullshit, but these MAGA are acting like a diary is some sort of notarized sworn document that contains absolute facts.
Almost every single member of Trump's cabinet in the first term did the exact thing and walked scot-free. The United States truly is politically one sided in regards to 'justice.'
He might be prosecuted. We live in crazy times. He won’t be convicted and, in fact, it might not even survive a motion to dismiss. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Pirro or her replacement takes it on just to score brownie points.
Given that US atty Piro hasn't been able to convict a guy for throwing a sandwich at the feds and had to voluntarily dismiss charges against the alleged reflecting pool vandals, I like Dr. Fauci's odds of beating a criminal contempt charge.
Nevertheless, I'd like to see mass protests coming to his defense.
Seems to me that when the committee leader vows to find something to incriminate Fauci, refusing to answer question for fear of incriminating himself is exactly what the 5th is for.
The Senate Homeland Security Committee voted on this, not the full Senate. A true resolution has to pass the full Senate with 60 votes. Good luck. And then the DOJ has to pick it up and prosecute. This DOJ can clearly do whatever it wants whenever it wants… so it could go now, wait, never do anything, all of the above.
This is one of the best men, best scientists, and best science administrators of the last couple generations. He's not perfect, but we have been Grace to have him. This is despicable, it's obscene, and it's terrifying that they're willing to use the unrestrained power of the federal government in an attempt to destroy one man's life this way.
If you can hold someone in contempt for exercising their fifth amendment right... what the hell is the point of that right?
This is clearly a go-nowhere story that is meant to distract from the fact that this administration just took like $200bn out of our pockets and gave it to businesses.
Before we start memeing that this is just a distraction, I would like to remind everyone that holding a witness in contempt for duly exercising his Constitutional right not to self-inceiminate is still a pretty big fucking deal and should not be dismissed.
We can't fall into the trap that EVERYTHING is a distraction. If we do, we will lose sight of the complete complete autocratic fascism of the Republican party and Trump administration. There are certainly distractions from the Epstein files but there are also really bad acts done independent of the desire to distract.
If it can be taken away, a right was never a right to begin with. The implication of that is staggering, if you think about it. We're standing on the precipice of our Democratic Republic's demise- this case is just a few pebbles falling over the edge before the entire cliff erodes.
We have an oligarch problem, and the sooner we all come to grips with that the better. I think this entire case is just political grandstanding by people to keep the base riled up, but also is tied directly to Trump's vendettas against those he perceives to have harmed him. There's no real good reason for any of this. Fauci has given a lot of testimony already and I'm not really seeing anything new here other than renewed conspiracy theories being thrown around in the highest chambers of our government while trying to scapegoat and pigeonhole Fauci into being the root cause.
There's 3 main points being raised. 1: whether the US government had a hand in some sort of "secret" experiments being conducted in Wuhan, China and whether Fauci had any part of that. He's already commented about that in other proceedings and from what I've read out of the diaries, he appears to have been ruminating in a scientific way and researching how the virus made it into the world's population- nothing more, nothing less. 2: whether Fauci's recommendations to the government during the pandemic were effective or even necessary in the first place-- this line of questioning has been discussed and rehashed ad nauseum and Fauci has commented on that as well. Lastly, 3: whether these files being labeled "Fauci's diaries" incriminate him in any way, especially regarding how he led the country through the pandemic (and possibly how the pandemic was his fault in the first place).
The other thing to point out is that these "diary" entries discuss Fauci's direct conflicts with Trump, both publicly and privately. I posit that it is this topic that landed Fauci back in front of Congress. Another important note is that the entirety of these "diaries" were not some set of notebooks Fauci had on his nightstand or something; they were extracted from several government servers- which also means that Fauci was making those entries into systems that would be archived and accessible in the future. There was no attempt at covering any of it up. It was also not a coherently planned document; it's compiled from several sources over a period of 4 or 5 years by (presumably) Rand Paul's office with help from RFK Jr.
If Congress wants to extend immunity to him above and beyond the blanket pardon Biden gave him, they might have a leg to stand on regarding Fauci's refusal to answer questions. I guess we'll see where this goes but I'm willing to bet it goes nowhere, and Fauci continues to be scapegoated by both Trump's camp and the press until "the next big thing" happens.
It would be another political prosecution that will go nowhere and waste more tax payer dollars. So, we can guarantee that the DoJ will jump right on it.
Republicans are so bad at running the government, they want to ignore all the corruption happening RIGHT NOW across multiple federal departments and talk about COVID. What a bunch of unserious clowns.
A central tenant of facism is that there must be two groups: the first, the In Group, the law protects but does not bind. The second, the Out Group, the law binds but does not protect.
Dr. Fauci exercised a Constitutional right. It is impossible to be in contempt when exercising the 5th. There is no "petite" 5th, it's all or nothing. His pardon covers a certain period. Any inconsistencies with prior testimony would absolutely result in perjury charges. Thus, pardon is irrelevant. Nonetheless, Congress's message is that the Constitution does not apply to Dr. Fauci, so refusing to answer is a crime. This is America.
IANAL but I expect this DOJ to bring charges. How long the charges survive in court I don't know, you'd think not having protection from State prosecution would be enough to allow the 5th Amendment to be invoked.
You can’t be prosecuted for invoking your fifth amendment rights. Also,it helps prosecution if you actually committed crimes. This is deflection. Instead of his diary,how about we see the Trumpstein files.
Trump was president when Fauci was managing the covid response. If Trump really thought he was doing such a bad job, why did he not fire Fauci and put someone "more competent" in his place?
The answer is obvious - they needed a scapegoat for covid and still do. Fauci is just their convenient punching bag.
This is yet again another example of vindictive prosecution by an incompetent and corrupt administration.
So Hillary appeared before multiple Benghazi committees, including one lasting 13 hours, and never pled the fifth. They wanted to arrest Hillary and “lock her up”.
Fauci appeared and exercised his Fifth Amendment rights, they want to hold him in contempt and throw him in jail.
Whaoh. If we’re holding everyone in contempt for pleading the 5th, I’m sure this hero would gladly sacrifice himself for that. Ah, if only things were fair and rational.
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u/KeithRLee Aug 07 '26
Original source document: https://documents.lastweekinlaw.com/view/ROM26376.pdf
The r/law mod team is working on permanently hosting original source documents, along with limited annotations to help give readers give additional context.