When Dr. Anthony Fauci stepped down two years ago following an extraordinary career in public service, Barack Obama issued a memorable statement.
“I will always be grateful that we had a once-in-a-century public health leader to guide us through a once-in-a-century pandemic,” the former Democratic president wrote. “Few people have touched more lives than Dr. Fauci — and I’m glad he’s not done yet.”
Obama’s praise represented the sentiments of many Americans, who came to celebrate Fauci as a pioneering public-health visionary who dedicated his life to helping others. That opinion, up until fairly recently, was entirely bipartisan.
But as Republican politics has radicalized, the right has come to see Fauci as a monstrous villain, whom they’re eager to target.
Two years ago, GOP lawmakers said Fauci’s retirement wouldn’t deter them from going after him if voters put House Republicans in the majority. A year later, Republican Rep. Tim Burchett said in reference to Fauci, “We need to pop him good, and hang a felony on him.”
It was against this backdrop that Fauci appeared before a congressional committee for yet another round of questions. NBC News reported:
In his first public testimony since stepping down from government office at the end of 2022, Dr. Anthony Fauci on Monday fended off a variety of attacks from Republican politicians at a fiery hearing called to discuss lessons learned during the pandemic. Fauci, appearing voluntarily before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, denied a wide range of claims that have been made against him in recent years.
Those who watched the cringeworthy display heard quite a few conspiracy theories, and more than a few odd complaints that had nothing to do with Covid or the pandemic, but those waiting for devastating information that made Fauci look bad were left wanting.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Indeed, The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank explained, GOP members on this House panel have spent the last year and a half promising bombshell revelations about cover-ups and nefarious payoffs. Yesterday’s hearing was the party’s opportunity to expose Fauci once and for all — except Republicans didn’t have anything notable to share. From Milbank’s column:
Documents and testimony the panel gathered over 18 months, while finding misbehavior by a grant recipient and by an adviser to Fauci, produced nothing to substantiate these wild allegations. The United States did not fund research that created the pathogen. Fauci didn’t lie about the U.S. role in “gain of function” research at the laboratory in Wuhan, China. He didn’t try to suppress the lab leak theory, or bribe people to reject it. He didn’t get rich off the pandemic, either — although he testified that he earned about $120 a year from an antibody he developed years ago.
And this is ultimately what mattered most about the hearing. House Republicans spent years gearing up for this high-profile event. They would finally expose Fauci. They would present their evidence and prove their conspiracy theories true. Conservative media outlets and far-right activists would, at long last, rejoice as the celebrated immunologist was torn down by GOP members who’d done their homework.
Except, none of that happened. Republicans tried to rake Fauci through the coals, but he emerged unscathed — not because the committee’s GOP members struggled to present a coherent case, but because there was no case to bring.
The Republicans’ “weaponization” committee was a dud. The party’s anti-Biden impeachment crusade was a dud. The GOP’s Jan. 6 committee was a dud. And now the GOP’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has joined the pitiful parade, leaving Fauci unscathed.