Fauci hearing a sham: Republicans only looking to prosecute 

I watched this week as Sen. Rand Paul subpoenaed Dr. Anthony Fauci to testify before a Republican-led Senate committee. From the opening statement, it was clear this wasn’t designed to be a fact-finding hearing. Paul framed one of the world’s most recognizable infectious disease experts as a criminal who deliberately misled the American people during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Fauci responded directly in his opening remarks, saying Paul has an obvious obsession with calling for his prosecution.  

Now, after Fauci pleaded the Fifth, Paul is doubling down, threatening to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions. But why would he? Rand Paul has spent years making clear that his objective is to put Fauci behind bars.  

Republicans want to continue to relitigate COVID, and their determination to prosecute Fauci led them to missing out on what could have been a rare opportunity to honestly examine what went right, what went wrong, and what we should do differently the next time the world faces a pandemic.

Some people, like Joe Scarborough, saw the hearing for what it was:  

“The Fauci thing, just sheer political theater. They shamed themselves. We Americans needed answers yesterday. We needed answers on origins of this, the best information they had, the thinking about closing down schools, the thinking about all these other things. If it had been a normal........

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