Comer ‘likes the idea’ of an Arrest of Fauci Over COVID Protocols

[Social Media]

 

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) expressed support for the idea of arresting former COVID response chief Anthony Fauci following Fauci's recent testimony regarding the Trump administration's early response to the coronavirus pandemic. During an interview with Fox Business on Tuesday, Comer accused Fauci of lying to Congress about various aspects of the government's handling of the pandemic, particularly the implementation of the six-foot social distancing guideline.

 

“At the end of the day, if you lie to Congress, that’s a felony,” Comer asserted. He emphasized Fauci's central role in establishing the six-foot spacing recommendation, which became a standard measure during the pandemic. Comer argued that this measure had far-reaching negative impacts, including the closure of thousands of businesses and disruptions to public education.

 

“This is something that not only shut down tens of thousands of businesses in America and ran the debt up as a result of having to subsidize those businesses that were shut down and have to subsidize the unemployment rate,” Comer elaborated. “It destroyed public education. Kids couldn’t be in school because of the six-foot social distancing requirements that Doctor Fauci championed.”

 

Fauci’s appearance on Monday marked his first time answering questions under oath since he left government service. His testimony was met with rigorous questioning from several Republican critics who have been eager to hold him accountable for what they view as mismanagement and misinformation during the pandemic. 

 

Comer, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, suggested in a separate interview with Newsmax that Fauci's testimony could serve as a basis for a criminal investigation. “Hopefully, we can take his words today and continue to try to gather evidence and take steps to try to hold him in criminal wrongdoing because I believe that the majority of Americans realize that Dr. Fauci made costly mistakes, he’s lied about them and he’s tried to cover it up,” Comer said.

 

The House Oversight Committee has been investigating Fauci's actions during his tenure as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a position he held for decades. During his testimony, Fauci denied having knowledge of a senior adviser's attempts to circumvent public information laws.

 

Fauci also faced heated exchanges with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who notably refused to address him as "Doctor" and became emotional when discussing the harassment and death threats Fauci has received over the years. Greene, along with other Republicans, has been vocal in her criticism of Fauci, attributing to him significant responsibility for the hardships Americans endured during the pandemic.

 

Fauci’s handling of the COVID-19 response has long been a contentious issue, with critics accusing him of overstepping his authority and making decisions that had severe economic and social consequences. Despite these accusations, Fauci has maintained that his recommendations were based on the best available scientific evidence at the time and were aimed at protecting public health.

 

The push by Comer and others to pursue legal action against Fauci highlights the ongoing political divide over the government's pandemic response. As the debate continues, the potential for criminal investigations and legal proceedings against Fauci remains a topic of significant public and political interest.

 

 

Credit: The Hill 2024-06-06

 

Get our Daily Newsletter - Click HERE to subscribe

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The hard-right Republicans in Congress have been calling for Dr. Fauci to be prosecuted (and now arrested) for years, and nothing's come of it, thus far, at least in the public domain. How far back?

 

------------------------------------

Rand Paul sends official criminal referral on Anthony Fauci to DOJ

July 26, 2021

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/564803-rand-paul-sends-official-criminal-referral-on/

-------------------------------------

 

Perhaps before they try to have Fauci arrested this latest time around, they ought to try to actually prove he's committed some crime, which thus far, they haven't been able to do, except in their own minds and rhetoric.

 

For example:

 

Per the Associated Press earlier this week:

 

"A GOP-led subcommittee has spent over a year probing the nation’s response to the pandemic and whether U.S.-funded research in China may have played any role in how it started — yet found no evidence linking Fauci to wrongdoing." [emphasis added]

...

Republicans repeated unproven accusations against the longtime National Institutes of Health scientist..."

 

https://apnews.com/article/fauci-covid-pandemic-origin-congress-a66625482f25824476ee315484790230

 

 

Per the New York Times earlier this week:

 

"And for all the hundreds of thousands of pages of documents and more than 100 hours of closed-door testimony that the panel reviewed, lawmakers produced nothing on Monday linking Dr. Fauci to the beginnings of the Covid outbreak in China...."

 

https://archive.ph/Q2NKi

 

 

Per subcommittee ranking member Raul Ruiz:

 

Ruiz added that the evidence found that "Dr. Fauci did not fund research through the EcoHealth Alliance Grant that caused the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Fauci did not lie about gain of function research in Wuhan China, Dr. Fauci did not orchestrate a campaign to suppress the lab-leak theory."

 

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/anthony-fauci-covid-origins-hearing-06-03-24/index.html

 

 

The Republicans, of course, have long claimed and are continuing to claim that Fauci lied to Congress about the so-called "gain of function" research that was done in China.  But that hardly appears a clear or prosecutable proposition, given the following:

 

As the AP reported earlier this week:

 

"The definition of “gain of function” covers both general research and especially risky experiments to “enhance” the ability of potentially pandemic pathogens to spread or cause severe disease in humans. Fauci stressed he [in rejecting Republicans' claims of lying] was only using the risky experiment definition, saying “it would be molecularly impossible” for the bat viruses studied with EcoHealth’s funds to be turned into the virus that caused the pandemic."

 

https://apnews.com/article/fauci-covid-pandemic-origin-congress-a66625482f25824476ee315484790230

 

And as the Washington Post previously reported back in 2021 on the same topic:

 

"There is a split in the scientific community about what constitutes gain-of-function research."

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/10/29/repeated-claim-that-fauci-lied-congress-about-gain-of-function-research/

 

or

 

https://archive.ph/WG6VE

 

But now suddenly, with this latest report in the OP, at least one congressman suddenly seems to have switched gears to focus on the CDC's former 6-feet social distancing policy -- which Fauci didn't even draft and wasn't responsible for.

 

In his testimony this week, Fauci clarified his prior somewhat halting comments on the topic to say he meant there had not been clinical trials done on the distancing policy, a time consuming process that likely couldn't have been done first amid the urgency of the outbreak of the pandemic.

 

"Fauci sought to clarify on Monday that the 6-foot guidance came from the CDC and was based on droplet research, telling lawmakers: "It had little to do with me since I didn't make the recommendation and my saying 'there was no science behind it' meant there was no clinical trial behind that."

 

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/republicans-poised-grill-anthony-fauci-covid-19-response/story?id=110677611

 

In any event, the record shows that there in fact had been much research done on the issue of how far apart distances were optimal, as recounted in this 2020 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office:

 

Science & Tech Spotlight: Social Distancing During Pandemics

GAO-20-545SP Published: May 13, 2020. Publicly Released: May 13, 2020.

 

"A CDC guideline based on historical studies of selected infections says that the area of highest risk is within 3 feet of an infected person. Some studies suggest a buffer of 6 feet may further reduce risk.

 

Other studies examining droplet dispersion in sneezing and coughing found they can go more than 6 feet. Also, viral material may persist in the air within a room for up to 3 hours."

 

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-545sp

 

In short, there was a lot of science and past deliberation behind the social distancing policy, hardly something that the CDC plucked out of thin air, and a policy that Fauci himself wasn't responsible for promulgating.

 

Thus, all of the above hardly sounds like a winner for arrest and a successful, legitimate criminal prosecution. But it does make for a lot of political rhetoric.

[Red Phoenix]

3 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

In short, there was a lot of science and past deliberation behind the social distancing policy, hardly something that the CDC plucked out of thin air, and a policy that Fauci himself wasn't responsible for promulgating.

Thus, all of the above hardly sounds like a winner for arrest and a successful, legitimate criminal prosecution. But it does make for a lot of political rhetoric.

> Comer ‘likes the idea’ of an Arrest of Fauci Over COVID Protocols

... and I fully endorse that idea, as Fauci needs to be held to account for all his lies.  

[Walker88]

I'm old enough to remember when the job of Congress was to legislate. Now, it seems, the R-controlled House is hellbent on finding somebody somewhere to arrest for something. Republicans are a pile of faux outrage in search of a target.

 

Would Dr Fauci be innocent if he had gone metric, like most of the rest of the planet did, and say "Two Meters" instead of 6'?

 

Take a step back....a new virus, the first one in memory which could be spread by people exhibiting no symptoms, and killing people at an astonishing rate across the globe...what should be the protocol? Until the virus is understood in detail, maybe, just maybe, what turned out to be an overreaction was understandable, if not even justifiable? SARS killed much faster and its kill rate was quite high....and initially Covid looked eerily similar to SARS. If anyone was in Hong Kong during SARS, the precautions taken dwarfed anything done for Covid...and SARS was still fresh in the minds of virologists when Covid hit. Folks erred on the side of caution. Little did they know that EVERYBODY, especially on the Right, was expert in viruses, masks, mitigation measures, vaccines and biochemistry. Who knew?

 

Perhaps the guy who chose Dr Fauci should also be prosecuted, since he announced to the entire nation that everything was under control and "it's 15 people now....and soon it will be down to one", and "poof! it will just disappear".

 

How about prosecuting Dr Fauci's boss? What say you, Comer?

[Bkk Brian]

4 hours ago, Social Media said:

“Hopefully, we can take his words today and continue to try to gather evidence

 yea ok, you keep wasting money trying.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

8 hours ago, Walker88 said:

Would Dr Fauci be innocent if he had gone metric, like most of the rest of the planet did, and say "Two Meters" instead of 6'?

 

Nope... According to the "stolen election" crowd in the House, that would be "lying" to Congress!  🙂   Arrest that man! 😞