Douglas Rooks has been a Maine editor and columnist for 41 years. His biography of Gov. Ken Curtis, “Transformational,” is now available. He welcomes comment at [email protected].
As summer distractions go, last week’s hearings with Republican Sen. Rand Paul once again grilling Dr. Anthony Fauci under subpoena were the equivalent of a B movie.
Paul has accused Fauci of lying and criminal behavior since the waning days of the coronavirus pandemic in 2021, and has yet to muster any evidence. Fauci, who ran the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 38 years before retiring in 2022, was the leading public face of the federal government’s response to a virus of terrifying lethality that killed more than 1 million Americans and at least 7 million worldwide.
In theory, it would be useful to discover the origins of this particular virus, with the leading theories a naturally occurring virus or a “lab leak” that suggests human error, in either case spreading from the Chinese city of Wuhan. But nothing Paul or any scientific investigation has produced confirms the “leak” theory, and the balance of evidence still suggests it was natural.
The “news” from the latest confrontation was that the Trump administration had unearthed Fauci’s personal diary that he incredibly left on a government server and promptly released it, clearly hoping Paul could entrap Fauci into statements inconsistent with earlier testimony so he could be indicted for lying to Congress. Fauci responded by invoking Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination.
One can stipulate Fauci made inconsistent statements in those early, panic-inducing days, when little was known about the virus except that it was rapidly killing thousands. The diary also shows he was sometimes vain and self-promoting — along with just about everyone else in Washington.
But the Paul team didn’t read carefully, for before redaction the diary showed Fauci frequently counseled former Trump White House aide Katie Miller, understandably concerned about how contracting the virus could affect her pregnancy — a human moment quickly ignored; Miller has joined the attackers.
And with the spectacular lack of context pervading national news, no mention is made of the elephant in the room: Why Fauci led the national response in the first place. The president, who in his second term attempts to be in charge of everything, was largely missing in action.
Trump first downplayed the virus, repeatedly compared it to the flu and claimed it would disappear with warmer weather. When Trump discovered the vaccine that helped end the pandemic wouldn’t be widely available before November 2020, he lost interest, and fell to criticizing Fauci in a campaign Republicans have continued ever since. Trump’s defeat by Joe Biden is directly attributable to this poor performance.
It’s striking that when public officials work together, pandemic response is much more effective. In Maine, Gov. Janet Mills, DHHS Commissioner Jeanne Lambrew and CDC Director Dr. Nirav Shah communicated daily with the public, advocated sensible policies and efficiently distributed vaccines. In the early going, Maine’s death toll was one-seventh that of similarly rural South Dakota, whose governor, Kristi Noem, advocated “freedom,” and later became Trump’s Homeland Security secretary.
Although the Fauci spectacle will fade, there are larger legal issues dating to the McCarthy era that ought to concern us. Fauci’s ordeal has been described as a witch hunt. The description fits.
In the 1950s, the House Un-American Activities Committee tried to track down and expose anyone who had joined the Communist Party or sympathized with it — activities that, however unpopular, were never illegal. It subpoenaed those identified by the FBI, often illegally, and asked about “red” affiliations. Various Supreme Court decisions upheld convictions of those who attempted to use the First Amendment’s free speech guarantees against coerced testimony unrelated to Congress’ need to write legislation.
HUAC witnesses thus had three choices: “name names,” so the committee had others to investigate; “plead the Fifth”; or go to prison. Most chose the first option; a few the latter. Taking the second option did not prevent blacklisting, firings or exclusion. Eventually, fears of communism receded and prosecutions ended, but the Supreme Court has never limited coercive questioning by congressional committees.
Which bring us back to Dr. Fauci. Despite an unusual pre-emptive pardon from President Biden, following Trump’s pledge, soon carried out, to pardon all those convicted from the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol, Fauci’s congressional inquisition can continue.
Perhaps someday the Supreme Court will vindicate the dissenting opinion by Justice Hugo Black in a 1959 HUAC case, where he said free speech guarantees should include “the interest of people as a whole in being able to join organizations, and make political ‘mistakes’ without later being subjected to governmental penalties for having dared to think for themselves. It is this right to err politically which keeps us strong as a Nation.”
Until then, we all remain in jeopardy.