Ahead of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s appearance before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, ostensibly to discuss the origins of Covid-19, Republicans made no effort to hide their goal. The whole point — the only point — of the hearing was to try to lay a trap for the longtime public health pioneer.
On his last day as president early last year, Joe Biden pardoned Fauci as part of an effort to shield him from political prosecutions, and so GOP officials realized (and publicly acknowledged) that if they’re going to tear down the 85-year-old immunologist, they’ll need to try to get him to perjure himself.
Ideally, with roughly three months remaining before the midterm elections, Republicans would have other objectives on their minds, but as became clear during Wednesday’s committee hearing (given how utterly bonkers the proceedings were, I use the word “hearing” loosely), it became clear that GOP senators can’t shake their seething hatred for one of the nation’s most accomplished and celebrated scientists.
Fauci, of course, faced a straightforward choice: He could play the Republicans’ game and hope for the best, or he could follow the advice of his attorneys and refuse to hand GOP senators the rope with which to hang him. Fauci wisely chose the latter path and repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment. It followed him telling the committee’s chairman, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, that his “unhinged obsession” had left him with little choice.
Predictably, the public learned very little — except, as Dr. Rachael Bedard explained in a New York Times opinion piece, that “show trials are bad for democracy and do nothing to get us closer to either truth or consensus” — though I was especially interested in some of the partisan reactions to the ridiculous display.
During the proceedings, for example, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri argued that Fauci didn’t have the right to invoke the Fifth, which as my MS NOW colleague Jordan Rubin explained, is a tough argument to take seriously. Equally as notable was what the senator said after the hearing.
“No honest person pleads the Fifth,” Hawley wrote via social media. He echoed the line on Fox News hours later.
It’s important to emphasize that the Missouri Republican has a law degree from Yale, so one would expect that he almost certainly understands how wrong this is, despite his willingness to publicly push the nonsense anyway.
If Hawley genuinely expects the public to believe that “no honest person pleads the Fifth,” perhaps now is a good time to remind folks that it was around this time four years ago when Donald Trump took the Fifth more than 440 times during a deposition related to the Trump Organization’s allegedly fraudulent business practices.
A variety of other figures from the president’s inner circle, including Eric Trump, John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark and Michael Flynn, also have extensive experience from recent years in invoking the Fifth Amendment.
Would Hawley have us believe that Trump and his allies are not “honest people”?
As for the near future, Rand Paul threatened Fauci with “repercussions” for invoking his constitutional rights during the hearing. Watch this space.
The post Why Republicans should think twice about condemning those who invoke the Fifth Amendment appeared first on MS NOW.
