The Persecution of a Public Servant

Susan Estrich on Aug 8, 2026

Anthony Fauci is an American hero. He spent his entire life in public service. He took on impossible challenges -- and impossible people. He saved millions of lives around the world.

And what does he get for it? A comfortable, well-earned retirement to spend as he pleases with family, friends and colleagues?

No, he is consigned to lawyers' conference rooms preparing to defend himself from a deranged man and his cowardly compatriots.

What can you say about Rand Paul? He believes what he chooses to believe. It has absolutely nothing to do with science. Every expert has told him that the research Dr. Fauci's agency funded in Wuhan could not have caused the lab leak, which Paul sees as the cause of the pandemic. In Paul's book, Anthony Fauci caused the pandemic and should be in prison for it. And he is obsessed with it. He has cross-examined Fauci in Senate hearings. He has called for his prosecution and imprisonment. That's why the preemptive pardon by President Joe Biden.

And now he has the audacity to argue that because Fauci received that presidential pardon, he is not entitled to invoke the Fifth Amendment.

If Rand Paul and the cowardly lions on his committee wanted to get full answers from Dr. Fauci (for the umpteenth time), then all they had to do was grant him immunity from prosecution for his answers. That would clear up any ambiguity about his duty to answer. But as it is, the pardon doesn't cover activities after the date of its issuance. Thus, it could certainly be argued, and Paul himself suggested this before the hearing, that it would not apply to testimony given at the hearing. Were Fauci to say something that in the mind of some prosecutor somewhere could be seen as inconsistent with something he said before, you could have a perjury indictment. The only safe thing is to say nothing at all, which is what Fauci did.

The usual procedure when a Senate committee votes for contempt is to refer the issue to the full Senate and only seek enforcement of the contempt citation from the Justice Department if there is a Senate vote confirming it. Rand Paul knows full well that there are not 60 votes in the Senate to refer Dr. Fauci for prosecution by the Justice Department. So, he and J.D. Vance did it their way.

As Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Rand Paul authored the contempt resolution and pushed it through on a party-line vote. Then J.D.Vance, acting in his constitutional role as President of the Senate, officially certifies the report and directs it to U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. Lest anything about this stunt be lost in transit, Rand Paul hand-delivered the referral file to the Justice Department, which will decide whether to seek an indictment.

Dr. Fauci was right to refuse to participate in a kangaroo court. His blanket invocation is admittedly not the norm, but there was nothing normal about this hearing. The questions about the origin of COVID have already been asked and answered by Dr. Fauci. The Fifth Amendment is the only answer to that game of gotcha. Precedents dealing with the limits of the Fifth Amendment in protecting lies do not apply.

Much has been written about the imperial power of this President. What about the imperial power of one Senate committee and, in truth, one Senator, Rand Paul? He set about to humiliate and try to destroy an honorable man, and no one even tried to stop him. Where were his colleagues, who know better? Following like sheep. Avoiding the rancor of the crazies.

It used to be said that a good prosecutor could convince a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. No more with Trump Justice. Blanche and Pirro may have trouble on this one; they should. Grand jurors are also bound to uphold the conviction. And should it get that far, I predict the case will get thrown out. But why should an American hero be forced to spend his eighties this way? Why should Rand Paul have this much power?

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