Balloon Juice – Miscreants Open Thread: The GOP’s Fauci Inquisition
…I imagine he thought he was the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Like, the answer to ‘why was Fauci so in the public eye?’ was very obviously that the Trump administration was incapable of handling basic press conferences, including the president himself.— “Online Rent-a-Sage” Bret Devereaux (@bretdevereaux.bsky.social) July 29, 2026 at 11:15 AM
Dr Fauci has led a life of dedicated service. Rand Paul, Ophthalmologist, consumed by professional envy and insecurity, conducted a rage-filled, unhinged assault on him. Dr Fauci has more intelligence and honor than Rand Paul will ever have. Dr Fauci is a patriot. Paul is not.
Per the Associated Press, “Fauci repeatedly invokes the Fifth Amendment in a contentious Senate committee hearing”:
Dr. Anthony Fauci on Wednesday repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment and declined to answer dozens of questions from senators in a Republican-led committee hearing about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The decision, at least for now, shielded Fauci from answering questions that could expose him to accusations of lying under oath. Though he received a pardon in early 2025 from Democratic President Joe Biden, some Republicans pursuing a yearslong campaign for his arrest had suggested he could still face charges for any perjury committed during Wednesday’s hearing…
In response to angry, sometimes mocking questions from Republican senators, Fauci declined to answer more than 100 times, injecting new drama into partisan divides that have festered for years about the origins and handling of the pandemic. Fauci himself has become a polarizing figure, even receiving death threats that prompted him to seek security.
In his opening statement, Fauci said Paul has an “obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution.”
“The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars,’” Fauci said, adding that while it pained him to do so, he was following his attorney’s advice by taking the Fifth.
Paul, who has long argued that Fauci should be criminally investigated, based on his belief that the scientist was dishonest in previous testimony to Congress, announced that the committee will vote next week on whether to hold Fauci in contempt for declining to answer questions…
Democratic senators praised Fauci and said he didn’t deserve the treatment he was getting.
“This hearing is designed to entrap you,” said Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire…
Scientists also scrambled to Fauci’s defense ahead of the unusual hearing — the second time he has been back before Congress to discuss pandemic origins since leaving the government in 2022. While the COVID-19 pandemic introduced him to millions of Americans, he talked the nation through numerous outbreaks over decades, including HIV, Ebola and the 2001 anthrax attacks, while advising seven presidents.
In a public letter, more than 150 infectious-disease experts and other scientists wrote that “no credible evidence has been produced to support these absurd charges” and that they are urging elected officials to “stop these witch-hunts.”…
Rand Paul loses it when Fauci’s attorney tries to say something, and he eventually directs security to kick him out of the hearing room
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) July 29, 2026 at 9:18 AM
All the Fauci stuff is a modern day version of the POW/MIA stuff after Vietnam – a way to try to rewrite the history of a huge failure of conservative ideology to be instead a story about how liberals and foreigners stabbed us in the back.
The Trash Theory of American Politics: There is a significant electoral constituency for which Trump’s stupidity, vulgarity, and racism are big assets, because if a guy like that can be president, you too have permission. The irrational hatred of Fauci is basically the flip side of this.
— Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) July 29, 2026 at 7:02 PM
The venom aimed at Fauci has no logical connection to anything he’s actually done. He’s a public figure in politics widely admired for being knowledgable and basically decent in a way that makes the sort of person who loves Trump feel resentful and inferior.
— Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) July 29, 2026 at 7:05 PM
man I will just never get over the fact that the collective response to the pandemic, and an absolutely miraculous vaccine development, was to destroy public health in this country and smear everyone involved
I generally take a positive view of humanity overall but it’s so depressing— Micah (@rincewind.run) July 29, 2026 at 12:27 PM
“So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous—whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light…then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?”
RIP 1.2 million Americans 😢— Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH (@gavinyamey.bsky.social) July 27, 2026 at 7:07 PM
The Journal of Clinical Medicine: “Hydroxychloroquine was not efficacious for treating hospitalized COVID-19 patients and caused more severe adverse events.”
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC…— David Corn (@davidcorn.bsky.social) July 29, 2026 at 10:58 AM
Rand Paul doesn’t belong in the Senate. He belongs in a Montana cabin writing manifestos on the insides of ripped open Slim Jim boxes.
— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot.bsky.social) July 29, 2026 at 3:17 PM
If Trump had handled COVID properly, IMO he would have won the 2020 election in a landslide.
Instead he was hoping and praying Covid would kill off The Blacks and the Messicans and Mooslims in large numbers and telling people to inject themselves with bleach and drink fish tank cleaner.— Veronica McDonald (@veronicamcdonald.bsky.social) July 29, 2026 at 9:04 PM
