On the morning of January 20, 2025, just hours before the presidency of Joseph R. Biden, Jr., came to an end, the White House released a stack of presidential pardons.
“Granted unto Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, a Full and Unconditional Pardon,” one of them states, “For any offenses against the United States which he may have committed or taken part in from January 1, 2014, through the date of this pardon arising from or in any manner related to his service as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force or the White House COVID-19 Response Team, or as Chief Medical Advisor to the President.”
The pardon was dated January 19, 2025, so that is 11 years and 19 days of pre-emptive, blanket immunity from prosecution for crimes that Fauci may have committed in the course of his federal employment.
That’s beyond unusual, but Fauci quickly explained it away by blaming President Trump. He told ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl that the threats and possibility of prosecution “creates immeasurable and intolerable distress on me and my family.”
Fauci said he “really, truly” appreciated Biden’s action on his behalf.
“Let me be perfectly clear, Jon,” he told the ABC News correspondent, “I have committed no crime, you know that, and there are no possible grounds for any allegation or threat of criminal investigation or prosecution of me.”
On Wednesday, a subpoenaed Anthony Fauci sat unwillingly before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and refused to answer questions, citing his right under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution over 100 times.
The Fifth Amendment states that no person “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”
Despite his refusal to answer questions, Fauci made an opening statement at the hearing, accusing the committee chair, Sen. Rand Paul, of slandering him and threatening to put him “behind bars.” Fauci brought a team of lawyers with him, including a high-profile criminal defense lawyer who was ejected from the hearing for persistently trying to speak on Fauci’s behalf while his client pleaded the Fifth.
So let’s tally this up. Fauci accepted a pardon for any criminal offenses he may have committed over an 11-year period. He refused to answer questions citing his right not to incriminate himself in a criminal case. He hired a criminal defense lawyer, the same one who represented Sen. Bob Menendez in a bribery case involving gold bars and Egyptians.
After everything that everyone in the country suffered from the COVID-19 pandemic and the government’s response to it, are we entitled to some answers to any questions?
If you don’t have any questions, you are well represented by the Senate Democrats who, with the sole exception of Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, used their time during the hearing to effusively praise Fauci and insult Republicans for holding the hearing at all. Have a nice day at the beach, and say hello to the press corps for me.
If you and your family were damaged and you do have questions, you are well represented by the Senate Republicans. They’ve acquired a lot of documents since 2020, and their questions reflected considerable information.
Sen. Joni Ernst asked whether Fauci intentionally obscured public visibility of taxpayer funding to EcoHealth Alliance through a subaward instead of awarding the funding directly. EcoHealth Alliance received U.S. tax dollars for research on bat coronaviruses conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That was in 2014, the first year covered by Fauci’s pre-emptive pardon.
Sen. Ron Johnson asked about adverse effects from the mRNA “experimental gene therapy,” including thousands of deaths within one or two days of the injection. He asked about efforts to conceal the blaring safety signals showing up in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) through the use of a data-mining algorithm that hid them. He noted that Fauci wrote in his own diary that he had suffered a pulmonary infarction, one of the known adverse effects, months after receiving a COVID vaccine, but was treated for it in secret while he continued to insist publicly that the vaccines were safe.
Sen. Josh Hawley asked about Fauci’s use of eight separate government employees on government time to research, solicit and secure for himself awards with cash prizes attached, in violation of federal law. Revealed in government emails released by Sen. Paul, this even included Fauci telling an employee who was working on Fauci’s annual financial disclosure that “the Dan David prize that was deposited in my bank account was $899,960.00, not $901,400.”
The file of emails on the prize-chasing runs 135 pages and, fair warning, may make you nauseous. If you have a strong stomach, it can be found online at paul.senate.gov/readingroom along with many files of revelations to leave you feeling queasy. Newly released Slack messages from the authors of a much-cited March 2020 paper claiming the virus most likely had a natural origin reveal that the authors of the paper privately doubted it.
You can also read the voluminous diary entries that Fauci typed on government computers and devices, data that was recovered and made public by the Department of Health and Human Services. It’s 1,140 pages documenting Fauci’s thoughts and daily actions between December 30, 2019, and December 17, 2022. It is searchable, so you can easily find references to individuals and events that turned your own life, and your family’s life, upside-down.
Mostly, you’ll find documentation that the famed “expert” influencing governors to ruthlessly crack down as if they were contestants on a “Top Totalitarians” reality show was an egotistical, self-enriching, deceitful, vicious narcissist.
Anyone seeking more evidence before drawing conclusions about the origins of COVID and the government’s actions can check out the COVID-19 origins archive at U.S. Right to Know (usrtk.org) and read the growing collection of documents acquired through Freedom of Information Act requests and lawsuits, compiled by executive director Gary Ruskin.
The truth is out there.
Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on X @Susan_Shelley