Despite Biden pardon, Fauci still faces legal perils

January 25, 2025

In RealClearInvestigations, Paul D. Thacker reports that Dr. Anthony Fauci is not completely out of legal jeopardy despite President Biden’s last-day pardon for the man whom major media feted as “Mr. Science ” during the COVID pandemic. Thacker reports:

Fauci will be unable to dodge investigators’ questions by invoking his Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination—because with a pardon, he forfeits them.

“If he lies about any prior lie, he can be prosecuted for that or held in contempt,” says a former Senate investigator.

And so lawmakers have vowed to continue investigating the origins of COVID, which Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky strongly suspects was a Chinese lab doing “gain of function” virus research, for which Fauci approved U.S. funding.

Sources report that Sen. Ron Johnson and House Republican investigators plan such inquiries as well.

Several X accounts have uploaded videos that show Fauci’s inconsistent statements. One set of clips shows Fauci claiming he kept an “open mind” about how the pandemic started while alleging in others that the evidence points against a lab accident and “strongly” in favor of a natural spillover.

Also bound for scrutiny is Fauci’s secret involvement in prominent research published in a medical journal in March 2020.

Dubbed the “proximal origin” paper, it turned public and scientific sentiment against the possibility of a lab accident. Subsequent emails showed Fauci helped guide the “proximal origin” paper to publication.

PHOTO: Dr. Anthony Fauci | washingtonpost.com