Dr. Anthony Fauci’s demeanor gave off “signals of deception” during Wednesday’s Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing, a renowned body language expert told The Post.
“When he was asked poignant questions, his autonomic nervous system took over, and he became flushed, his breathing changed, hunched over, paler, squirmed around, blinked a lot [and] licked his lips — all signals of deception,” Florida-based Dr. Lillian Glass wrote in an email.
Glass added that Fauci’s body language changed significantly at certain points of the hearing, shifting from confident and arrogant to “guarded” and “weak.”
“During Senator [Josh] Hawley’s questioning, Dr. Fauci’s shoulders rose again, and he squirmed visibly,” she noted. “His face became red. His voice weakened further and sounded increasingly shaky. He appeared emotionally strained and at moments looked as though he might cry.”
Hawley, the former state attorney general of Missouri, accused Fauci of using taxpayer resources to pursue cash prizes for himself, including coveted recognition like the Dan David Award, the Adelson Prize, and awards from the Smithsonian Institution, the National Academy of Medicine, and more.
The Missouri Republican also trolled and taunted Fauci over his decision to plead the Fifth, peppering him with softball questions such as asking about his tie and the color of the carpet, all of which the former White House COVID-19 czar declined to answer.
At one point, Hawley had cited Supreme Court precedent to argue that Fauci doesn’t “have any rights under the Fifth Amendment because you’ve been pardoned.”
But perhaps Fauci’s most famous clash of the hearing came from Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), who dropped multiple f-bombs while scolding him.
Here’s the latest on Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Senate testimony over his COVID leadership:
“During Senator Moreno’s questioning, Dr. Fauci’s face became flushed and red,” Glass recapped. “He looked downward and appeared unable or unwilling to look directly at the people behind him. He swallowed hard, continued manipulating his pen, and squirmed more noticeably in his chair.”
“His breathing appeared heavier,” she observed. “His voice became much softer and weaker. By this point, he sounded meek and increasingly difficult to hear.”
Glass has been an expert witness in federal as well as state courts on behavioral analysis and touts over four decades of experience. She has experience studying instances where individuals have refused to speak and stressed that in those circumstances, “the body continues to communicate.”
Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment rights some 111 times throughout the hearing.
The only window into his mindset during the questioning came from his opening statement when he laced into Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and underscored how the senator once called for him to be arrested.
“At the beginning, he appeared confident and sat upright. His tone then became more arrogant and defensive when he accused Senator Rand Paul of being out to get him and said that Senator Paul had made slanderous comments and publicly released his personal diary to embarrass him,” Glass assessed.
“When the questioning became less confrontational, and Dr. Fauci was being defended, his body appeared more settled. His posture looked less tense, and his breathing appeared steadier.”
