Sen. Ted Cruz became one of the first lawmakers to call for former White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci to face criminal charges Wednesday after he took the Fifth Amendment a stunning 111 times during a Senate hearing on the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Dr. Fauci ought to think about what it says about the end of his career, that what he will be remembered for the most is pleading the Fifth more than 100 times,” Cruz (R-Texas) told Fox News Digital.
“He’s been the most damaging bureaucrat in the history of America … he should be held in contempt [of Congress], he should be prosecuted for perjury, and he should go to jail.”
Appearing in response to a subpoena by Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the 85-year-old former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) declined to offer any insight into his decisions as the face of the federal COVID-19 response or his role in funding risky pathogen experiments in China, where the outbreak originated.
Instead, despite receiving a sweeping pardon from former President Joe Biden covering 11 years of activities, Fauci opted to exercise his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, enraging Republican lawmakers.
“I think Anthony Fauci has had contempt for Congress and contempt for the American people for decades,” said Cruz. “His diary shows that he deliberately lied to the American people over and over and over again … In his diary, he wrote early on that it was clear that the COVID virus did not come from the wet market in Wuhan [China], and then he turned around and said exactly the opposite thing on national television.”
“In his diary, he brags about convincing Democrats in New York and California to shut schools down, and yet he goes on TV and says, ‘Oh, I wasn’t for shutdowns,’” Cruz said.
“The school shutdowns, which Fauci bragged that he was responsible for, may well be the single most destructive public policy step we’ve seen in decades,” the Texan added. “That learning loss will stick with those kids the rest of their lives. When they’re 90 years old, they will still be suffering the consequences of Anthony Fauci’s corrupt and dishonest shutdowns.”
On the Democratic side, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania — a member of Paul’s committee who suggested during the hearing that he had let partisan loyalty blind him to the possibility that the pandemic may have started with an accidental lab leak — said his GOP colleagues had gone too far by making Fauci deliver his rote response to questions for three full hours.
“I do think it’s entirely appropriate to really hold Fauci accountable, but I don’t think it’s really appropriate to pound an 85-year-old man … just to try to humiliate the guy,” Fetterman told NewsNation’s “Cuomo” Wednesday evening.
“Is it really necessary to force the dude to say, ‘Fifth, Fifth, Fifth’ 111 times?”
