Anthony Fauci finally found a camera he didn’t like. Under questioning from the Senate Homeland Security Committee on July 29, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and onetime media darling invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid discussing his actions during the Covid-19 pandemic. The last smug gasp of the disgraced administrator startled even prominent Democrats. Sports commentator Stephen A. Smith was so embarrassed by Dr. Fauci’s display that he used his show’s monologue to apologize to NBA guard Kyrie Irving for having pilloried him for choosing not to take the Covid vaccine. Ashish Jha, President Biden’s Covid response coordinator, declared after Dr. Fauci’s disastrous Senate hearing that he believed the origin of the Covid outbreak was “more likely to have been a lab leak.”
Dr. Fauci’s refusal to answer any questions about the pandemic eerily mimics the tactics of his Communist Party collaborators in China, who have repeatedly blocked any international investigation into the origins of the outbreak. His silence denied transparency to millions of people who lost loved ones and livelihoods during the pandemic. In spite of his efforts to shirk accountability, Dr. Fauci has taught Americans plenty with the release of his diaries by Sen. Rand Paul, Homeland Security Committee chairman.