Why the attack on Fauci matters

7.30

Topic:COVID-19

Anthony Fauci has been accused of contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions in a US Senate committee. (Reuters: Nathan Howard)

In short:

A US Senate committee has voted to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress over his refusal to answer questions at a hearing about COVID-19.

The hearing, about Dr Fauci's handling of the pandemic, has been described by some as a show trial.

The chief executive of the American Public Health Association says US health professionals are afraid to do their job because of how Dr Fauci has been treated.

Medical experts say the persecution of Anthony Fauci is weakening America's health system and preventing the world from learning valuable lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Georges Benjamin, the chief executive of the American Public Health Association, said US health professionals were frightened by what had happened to Dr Fauci.

"They're afraid to do their jobs that they know need to get done because they're afraid they'll be criticised," he said.

The US Department of Justice is weighing whether to prosecute Dr Fauci over his refusal to answer the questions of a Congressional Committee.

He appeared last month under subpoena before the US Senate committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, but invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Dr Fauci received a pre-emptive pardon from former US president Joe Biden in January 2025, covering all actions he took from 2014 to 2025. However, Republican senators argue that it does not exempt him from answering their questions, and he could still face charges for anything after that date.

Anthony Fauci appears before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in Washington DC. (Reuters: Nathan Howard)

Former US federal prosecutor Amanda Vaughn told 7.30 that a contempt charge against Dr Fauci was possible. "I would not be surprised at all," Ms Vaughn said.

"There's some case law that's on Dr Fauci's side here," she said, "but we're in a little bit of a different environment, so it'll be interesting to see what the Department of Justice does."

If convicted, Ms Vaughn said Dr Fauci could be sentenced to time in prison.

Dr Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment rights more than 100 times during the Senate committee hearing.

"It was a show trial really," said Gavin Yamey, a professor at Duke University's Global Health Institute.

Donald Trump listens as Anthony Fauci speaks during a news conference at the White House in March, 2020. (Reuters: Al Drago)

Republican committee members accused Dr Fauci of hiding evidence about the dangers of COVID vaccines, destroying public trust in health institutions, and even of helping to create COVID-19 via US funding of a Chinese lab in Wuhan.

"Oh, just a ridiculous conspiracy theory, with no evidence, data, or proof, that Republicans are just hanging onto," Dr Yamey said.

"We know that the most likely cause of this pandemic is a zoonosis, that it came from an animal source."

Sharon Lewin, one of Australia's top infectious diseases experts, said the treatment of Dr Fauci "does a lot of damage".

Anthony Fauci with Sharon Lewin. (Supplied: Doherty Institute)

"The erosion of trust is something that's very, very significant," she said.

"If we had a big pandemic now we'd be asking the public to do all sorts of things, to work in partnership to respond to it, and we need that trust."

Dr Benjamin warned it could lead people to "not follow the advice that they're getting".

"We're already having a lot more vaccine misinformation happen in the United States," he said.

"And if you actually look at the places that followed good evidence, their morbidity and mortality were much less than in those places where they demonised or politicised the response."

Kindergarten vaccination rates in the US are dropping, and earlier this month US President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for American children to be vaccinated against fewer diseases.

'Didn't do anything wrong'

Anthony Fauci was director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022. (AP: Al Drago)

Dr Fauci led the scientific response to COVID-19 in the US and was the key presidential adviser on the pandemic.

He advocated mask-wearing and social distancing and urged Americans to get vaccinated as quickly as possible.

"We know that hundreds of thousands of people died. They'd be alive today if they took a vaccine."

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that more than 1.2 million Americans died of COVID-19.

Australia's Professor Lewin led research on the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 and liaised closely with Dr Fauci during the early stages of the pandemic.

Sharon Lewin says she is "really alarmed" by what is happening to Anthony Fauci. (ABC News: Billy Draper)

"I am really alarmed, largely because of what great contribution Dr Fauci has made over multiple decades in public health, serving under seven presidents with distinction, a person with the highest integrity, commitment to science and truth," she said.

Dr Yamey said Dr Fauci was "a man with over 50 years of really extraordinary public service who got America through previous outbreaks and pandemics, SARS, the anthrax attacks, flu pandemics".

Dr Fauci became the director of America's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 1984, when another global pandemic was at its height.

"He had a huge role to play in turning HIV from what was an almost-always fatal disease into something that people can live a normal life with," Dr Yamey said.

Donald Trump speaks about COVID-19 in February 2020 with Anthony Fauci by his side. (AP: Carolyn Kaster)

Dr Benjamin said Dr Fauci "didn't do anything wrong" during COVID.

He said people resented the impositions on their lives during the pandemic.

"You quite frequently had an unnamed, unknown bureaucrat, usually a health official, telling you you needed to stay home, wear a mask and take a shot. And for a while people were OK with that," Dr Benjamin said.

"But then when it began to get in the way of what they wanted to do, people turned on it. And we just weren't very good at risk communication. We could have improved that a lot."

Prison a possibility

Anthony Fauci was the key presidential adviser on the pandemic. (AP Photo: Jacquelyn Martin)

Dr Benjamin said the proper way to examine the response to COVID-19 would be via a national commission similar to the 9/11 Commission, not via politicised public examinations of Dr Fauci.

"I'm actually an emergency physician, and I understand disasters and emergencies," Dr Benjamin said.

"And this was a new, emerging disease. We made a lot of assumptions early on that turned out not to be true. And as we learned more, we adjusted, just like you would in any disaster … but if we didn't do the things that we did, many, many more people would've died."

The Senate committee investigating Dr Fauci has voted to hold him in contempt for refusing to answer questions, and Kentucky senator Rand Paul has referred that resolution to the Justice Department.

Ms Vaughn said that resolution would normally be assessed without political considerations.

But this was a different environment, she said.

Anthony Fauci speaks in front of the Senate committee last month. (Reuters: Jonathan Ernst)

"What I would normally expect is that career prosecutors would evaluate the potential charge, the strengths and the weaknesses, and make a recommendation on what should be done. And the political appointees in the department would be pretty deferential to that," the former prosecutor said.

"From what I see on the outside, it's not clear that that's what would happen here."

In 2022, Ms Vaughn prosecuted former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.

Mr Bannon had refused to testify before Congress over the January 6, 2021, riots.

He refused to attend the hearings, was convicted of contempt and sentenced to four months in jail. The Supreme Court later vacated the charges and sent the case back to the lower courts.

Steve Bannon served four months in prison after being found guilty of contempt of Congress. (Reuters: Kent J Edwards)

Ms Vaughn, who is now in private practice, said Dr Fauci could face a similar sentence if convicted.

"Contempt of Congress is a misdemeanour, and typically I think the maximum is only a year for this offence," she said.

"But in the US we have what are called sentencing guidelines, and that tells a judge what the recommended sentence is. And for crimes like this, for someone like Dr Fauci, it would really be zero to six months.

"That was the range that Mr Bannon was in, and the judge gave him four months there. So I can't imagine that Dr Fauci, if he were to be convicted, would face anything more than that."

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