Governance By Contempt

By now, you almost certainly know that Dr. Anthony Fauci, in recently testifying before Congress, pled the Fifth a reported total of ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN times in response to questions put to him by our elected representatives. He said nothing of substance, and rejected every attempt to get some honest answers in the wake of some eye-opening and truly damning revelations from his recently released diaries.

A friend put it thus:

On the most impactful event of the 21st century, our leading scientist, who usurped all other public health powers, refuses to testify as to his data. In defiance of a law specifically enacted by congress.

In doing so, Fauci made even more evident something some of us have long known: our “public servants” see us as creatures to be managed rather than represented. If that management is advanced by lying to us, that’s perfectly fine.

This is an offshoot and natural consequence of the attitude that inspires leftism: the presumption that “we know better” than the unwashed masses. That, because so many of our fellow citizens are ‘bitter clingers’ and ‘deplorables,’ they shouldn’t be allowed control over their lives. That, as Captain Jack Aubrey asserted in Master and Commander, “men must be governed!”

Aubrey admitted that such governance was sometimes poorly executed, which is more than I can say about the esteemed Dr. Fauci.

Fauci wasn’t simply wrong in public proclamation and policy mandates. He knew the truth, but opted to lie to us. He had the data that should, to a rationally thinking person, have recommended a targeted response focused on keeping seniors alive and safe, but instead demanded wholesale shutdowns of businesses and schools. Heck, even I, seeing the early data showing that COVID was less dangerous to the young than the common flu, realized that shutting schools down was a wholly unwarranted intervention. And a disastrous one, in hindsight: a generation of young Americans are suffering long-term cognitive and mental-health impact as a result.

Because he was pressed hard by Republicans - correctly as it turns out - Fauci was canonized by the Left. Because the wrong people disagreed with him, Fauci was given a free pass... and a blanket, preemptive Presidential pardon by Joe Biden (or whoever was pulling his strings and running his autopen).

That pardon should suffice to shield him from the consequences of his actions, so he has no reason to plead the Fifth - other than to preserve his standing in the eyes of the only people that (likely) matter to him: The elites. The Best-and-Brightest. The cohort that agrees with the notion that the Beltway crowd are actually masters rather than public servants. Trust in our institutions was severely damaged by Fauci and his ilk, at least on the Right. We libertarians say “come on into our tent - we’ve held that distrust for a long time.”

If he were truly a public servant, he’d seek to atone for his errors and try to undo the enormous damage he did. His diaries reveal something else, though: a massive ego, feeding hungrily on his celebrity status and on the adulation from the segments of society that mattered to him.

As the Daily Caller’s Amber Duke noted, what Fauci did to the American people was “evil.” He didn’t make honest mistakes, he fed us false information, covered up things that were known or suspected or obvious based on the actual data, and gaslit the entire nation.

As a reminder, this was a man who, four years ago, said “I have nothing to hide” and welcomed the opportunity to testify before Congress.

The consequences of this man’s immorality and hubris cannot be overstated.

Yet, as my above-quoted friend also noted:

One half of our political order goes *yawn*.

Echoes of Hillary Clinton’s “what difference, at this point, does it make,” come to mind.

Fauci’s excuse for pleading the Fifth on even the most mundane questions is that he thought Senator Paul was angling to get him in a perjury trap. Again, I point out that a good public servant would seek to restore public trust and get the truth out, especially given his immunity from prosecution for any actions prior to January 19, 2024.

Many ask if Fauci could actually invoke 5A given that immunity?

As attorney William Kirk notes in this video, Fauci’s assertion of 5A privilege was not “proper” under his circumstances, because he was not in jeopardy and had no ability to incriminate himself legally. Meaning that he could be found in contempt of Congress.

Since this was a Senate hearing, finding him in contempt of Congress would require 60 votes to clear a filibuster.

How many blue-team Senators do you think would join the Republicans in tearing down Saint Fauci, no matter how plain and obvious the charges of contempt are?

In an election year?

Yeah...

It has been 55 years since the Senate held someone in contempt.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/reporters-notebook-rand-pauls-contempt-vote-crusade-could-doomed-despite-fauci-pleading-fifth-111-times

So, the contempt Fauci showed Congress will join his contempt for the American people. The lies he told will go unpunished. The damage he did will go unacknowledged.

And the Left will applaud and continue to venerate him, because the Left holds every American not of their tribe in contempt and because tribalism trumps truth in politics.

---

Amber Duke noted that Fauci might have a valid 5A invocation on matters that might open him to civil suit, such as vaccine side effects. This doesn’t get him out of dutch for going 5A when asked what day of the week it is, or what color tie he was wearing, or what color the carpet in front of him was, or what the Fifth Amendment says, or whether he has a red folder in front of him.

In short, Fauci gave a figurative ..!.. to the American people. Had he done so literally, the irony is that he would have been protected under the First Amendment.