Persecution special · Updated 30/07/2026
The United States gave him its highest civilian honour. Now it's putting him on trial.
On 29 July 2026 an 85-year-old man who spent 38 years running America's infectious disease institute sat in front of a Senate committee and, on his lawyers' advice, refused to answer anything at all - so completely that when a senator asked him what colour the carpet was, he wouldn't answer that either. Another senator held up printouts about ivermectin. The chairman had his lawyer removed by Capitol Police, then asked whether this man had caused 'the largest man-made plague in history'. Two Republican presidents put him on the record as a hero: one named him in a televised debate in 1988, the other hung the Presidential Medal of Freedom around his neck in 2008. Here is what the receipts actually say.
01 The trial
Three hours, one carpet question, zero proof.
Senator Rand Paul subpoenaed Fauci to the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and, days before, published 1,141 pages of the man's private pandemic diary - posted it, pulled it down on the Monday evening, then reposted it with redactions once someone worked out what they had put online. Fauci read a short statement and invoked the Fifth Amendment. He then invoked it for three hours, declining more than a hundred questions.
The refusal was blanket, and the legal ground for it is genuinely contested. Biden gave Fauci a full and unconditional federal pardon on 19 January 2025, covering offences from 1 January 2014 to that date arising from his government service. Paul's argument is that this removes any risk of self-incrimination for the period the committee asked about, so the privilege is unavailable - and law professor Mark Osler broadly agrees the pardon appears to cover the earlier testimony. Others disagree: CNN's Elie Honig notes a federal pardon cannot touch state offences, and former federal prosecutor Danya Perry says whether Fauci's fear of prosecution is enough to support the privilege 'would ultimately be for a court to decide'. Fauci's lawyer David Schertler: 'We are completely confident that Dr. Fauci has a valid Fifth Amendment privilege here and is on solid legal ground in asserting it. Rand Paul may be a doctor, but he is not a lawyer.' Paul concedes a court will have to settle it. Meanwhile, in the room: Senator Josh Hawley asked what day it was and what colour Fauci's tie and the carpet were, proving the refusal was total. Senator Ron Johnson held up what he said were studies on ivermectin. Senator Bernie Moreno demanded apologies. Chairman Paul ordered Capitol Police to remove Schertler from the room: 'This testimony is from Anthony Fauci. This is not a game with his lawyers.' Fauci called it an 'unhinged' campaign to see him imprisoned. Paul closed by asking whether Fauci's actions 'lead to the largest man-made plague in history', and set a contempt vote for early August 2026.
Sources: Reuters: Fauci invokes Fifth at Rand Paul-led hearing, calls campaign 'unhinged' (29/07/2026); NPR: Fauci invokes Fifth Amendment in Rand Paul Senate hearing (29/07/2026); Al Jazeera / AP: invoking the Fifth is a constitutional right and does not imply guilt (30/07/2026); US Senate HSGAC: official hearing record, 29/07/2026, Dirksen SD-342; CBS News: Sen. Paul says there's a 'very real chance' Fauci could be prosecuted; Fauci's lawyer says the privilege is valid (29/07/2026); CNN: why Fauci might not be safe after pleading the Fifth - Osler, Honig and Perry on the pardon's limits (29/07/2026); Al Jazeera / AP: Biden's 19 January 2025 pardon covers federal offences back to 2014 but not new ones; Paul concedes his counter-argument is a novel question 'that the courts may have to decide'; NPR: Fauci to face a contempt of Congress vote.How a Senate inquiry spent its morning
24-27/07 - The diary dump: Paul publishes 1,141 pages of Fauci's private diary plus a 465-page 'prequel'. Posted, taken down Monday night, reposted Tuesday with redactions. 29/07 08:30 - Subpoenaed and sworn: Fauci, 85, appears in Dirksen SD-342, reads a short statement, and invokes the Fifth on the advice of counsel. During - The blanket refusal: Sen. Hawley asks what day it is and what colour the carpet is, proving the refusal is total. Sen. Johnson holds up what he says are ivermectin studies. During - Lawyer removed: Paul directs Capitol Police to remove Fauci's attorney David Schertler from the hearing room. Schertler calls the accusations 'false and disgraceful'. Early Aug - The contempt vote: Paul closes by asking whether Fauci caused 'the largest man-made plague in history', and schedules a contempt vote.
02 The evidence
Paul's smoking gun is a man doing science correctly.
Start with the actual evidence, because Paul supplied it himself. He said the entries 'completely undermine the official narrative'. He pointed to 1 February 2020 - six weeks into a novel outbreak - where Fauci wrote that on a call with leading virologists 'there was not total agreement' about where the virus came from. That is the scandal in full: scientists disagreeing with each other, in private, before the data existed.
Here is what Paul's own published document also contains, further along. Fauci writes that he 'is almost certain that the virus evolved naturally from a species jump, even though ... I keep an open mind about the possibility of a lab leak', and that 'just because two alternatives are possible that does not mean that they are equally probable'. That is not a cover-up. That is a man reasoning properly in a private notebook, with no idea a senator would one day publish it: hold the question open, weigh the evidence, update as it arrives, and refuse to pretend two unequal possibilities are a coin flip. Paul published the exculpatory document himself and called it a confession.
Sources: NPR: what Fauci's diary entries actually say, including the 'equally probable' passage (29/07/2026); NPR: Rand Paul releases the diary entries ahead of the hearing (27/07/2026); Primary source: the 1,141-page diary package published by Sen. Paul's office (PDF); Primary source: the 465-page 'prequel' of Fauci documents, 2001-2015 (PDF); Reuters: Paul says the entries 'completely undermine the official narrative'.Claim vs receipt
Claim: The diary shows Fauci privately knew it was a lab leak and lied in public. Receipt: The same diary has him 'almost certain the virus evolved naturally from a species jump' while keeping 'an open mind about the possibility of a lab leak'. That is also what he said in public. Claim: 'There was not total agreement' on a February 2020 call proves a cover-up. Receipt: Virologists disagreeing about a brand-new virus in week six is not a cover-up. It is a Tuesday. Arguing before the data lands is the job. Claim: He took the Fifth, so he must be guilty. Receipt: Invoking the Fifth is a constitutional right and does not imply guilt. The legal question here is genuinely open: Biden's federal pardon covers January 2014 to January 2025, but not state offences, and lawyers quoted by CNN split on whether that leaves real exposure. Paul concedes a court will have to decide. Claim: The private notes contradict the public statements. Receipt: Paul published 1,141 pages hunting for that contradiction. What he found was a man writing that two possible answers 'does not mean that they are equally probable' - the exact reasoning he was attacked for in public.
03 The actual charge
The real accusation isn't the lab leak. It's a definition.
Give the other side its best ground, because it has some. The origin of COVID-19 is genuinely not settled, and anyone telling you otherwise in either direction is selling something. Most scientists favour a natural spillover; the FBI in 2023 and the CIA in 2025 leaned lab-related, the CIA explicitly at low confidence, while other agencies and the National Intelligence Council favour natural origin or remain undecided. A Republican-led House subcommittee concluded in its December 2024 final report that a lab leak was the most likely explanation. All of that can be true at once - and none of it is what Fauci is actually accused of.
Here is the charge at its strongest, in the accusers' own words, because a page that hides this has no business claiming to be sourced. At a Senate hearing on 11 May 2021 Fauci told Paul: 'the NIH and NIAID categorically has not funded gain-of-function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.' Paul's reply: 'You are parsing words.' The House Select Subcommittee's December 2024 final report agreed with him. Its heading reads 'FINDING: Dr. Anthony Fauci Played Semantics with the Definition of Gain-of-Function Research'. It called his testimony 'at a minimum, misleading', concluded it 'misled the public regarding NIH funding of gain-of-function research at the WIV', and noted that NIH's own website carried a broader definition at the time - a page removed the same day the EcoHealth experiment was reported to Congress. That is the case against him, and it is not nothing. Now the part that never gets said out loud. 'At a minimum, misleading' is not 'knowingly false', and a congressional finding is not a judicial one. The whole dispute is over which definition governs: the broad usage on NIH's website, or the narrower federal P3CO category covering enhanced potential pandemic pathogens. Credentialled people split on it. Richard Ebright of Rutgers says the work was 'unequivocally' gain-of-function. Alina Chan, one of the most prominent advocates of the lab-leak hypothesis, agrees the grant was reasonably excluded from the moratorium. To convict a man of lying to Congress you must prove he knowingly said something false, and a contested definition that expert opponents cannot agree on is the worst foundation imaginable for that. Paul referred him to the Justice Department in July 2023 and renewed it in July 2025; no prosecution has followed either time. And the further step - that any funded work actually produced SARS-CoV-2 - has never been established at all. The viruses studied under the grant are genetically too distant from it.
Sources: Official Senate transcript, 11 May 2021: Fauci's verbatim testimony and Paul's 'You are parsing words' reply (govinfo.gov); House Select Subcommittee final report, Dec 2024: 'FINDING: Dr. Anthony Fauci Played Semantics with the Definition of Gain-of-Function Research', pp. 133-139 (PDF); FactCheck.org: The Wuhan Lab and the Gain-of-Function Disagreement - the P3CO framework and the expert split including Ebright, Chan and NIH Director Collins; Washington Post Fact Checker: Fact-checking the Paul-Fauci flap over Wuhan lab funding (18/05/2021); Al Jazeera / AP: where the science and the intelligence agencies actually stand; House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic: 520-page final report, December 2024; The final report itself (PDF); US Senate HSGAC: Sen. Paul re-refers Fauci to the Justice Department (July 2025), citing his 2021 testimony denying NIH funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan.Was it gain-of-function? Ask the experts, and the rulebook.
Yes - Richard Ebright, Rutgers: A longstanding critic of this research says it was 'unequivocally' gain-of-function and met the 2014 definition. No - NIH, Francis Collins: Says it never approved a grant that would have increased a coronavirus's transmissibility or lethality for humans. Excluded - Alina Chan, Broad Institute: A leading lab-leak proponent agrees the grant was reasonably excluded from the moratorium. Misleading - House Subcommittee, Dec 2024: Found Fauci 'played semantics' and that his testimony was 'at a minimum, misleading'. It made no finding of a knowing lie.
04 The receipts
Two Republican presidents put this on the record.
The allegation has now been weighed. Here is the man carrying it. In October 1988, on a televised presidential debate stage, George H. W. Bush was asked to name the heroes in American life today. He named a doctor almost nobody watching had heard of: 'He's a very fine research, top doctor, at the National Institute of Health, working hard doing something about research on this disease of AIDS.' That was Anthony Fauci, more than three decades before COVID-19 existed.
Twenty years after that debate, on 19 June 2008, George W. Bush put the Presidential Medal of Freedom around the same man's neck and said: 'Three decades ago, a mysterious and terrifying plague began to take the lives of people across the world. Before this malady even had a name, it had a fierce opponent in Dr. Anthony Fauci ... He was also a leading architect and champion of the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.' The official citation ends: 'The United States honors Anthony Fauci for his commitment to enabling men, women, and children to live longer, healthier lives.' That is not a press release from his fan club - that is the United States government, under a Republican president, entering it on the permanent record. He had already received the National Medal of Science. PEPFAR, the programme Bush credited him with helping architect, is estimated by UNAIDS to have saved more than 26 million lives between 2003 and 2024. He ran NIAID for 38 years across seven administrations of both parties, through HIV/AIDS, anthrax, SARS, H1N1, Ebola and Zika. The committee weighing whether to hold him in contempt is weighing it against that.
Sources: Commission on Presidential Debates: 13 October 1988 transcript, Bush names Fauci when asked for heroes; Bush White House archives: 2008 Medal of Freedom ceremony remarks, 'a fierce opponent' and 'leading architect and champion'; Bush White House archives: the official 2008 Medal of Freedom citations; National Science Foundation: Fauci, National Medal of Science recipient; UNAIDS: PEPFAR saved more than 26 million lives, 2003-2024; US Senate HSGAC: Fauci listed as NIAID Director 1984-2022; NIH: statement on Fauci's departure after 38 years and seven presidents.The CV they're putting on trial
1984 - Takes over NIAID: Becomes director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He will hold the job for 38 years. 1988 - A Republican names him a hero: Asked on the presidential debate stage to name heroes in American life today, Vice President George H. W. Bush names Fauci for his AIDS research. 2001 - Anthrax: Becomes a leading federal scientific voice during the anthrax letter attacks, weeks after 11 September. 2003 - PEPFAR: A leading architect of Bush's AIDS relief programme, in Bush's own words. UNAIDS puts its toll at more than 26 million lives saved by 2024. 2008 - Presidential Medal of Freedom: 'The United States honors Anthony Fauci for his commitment to enabling men, women, and children to live longer, healthier lives.' 2014-16 - Ebola, then Zika: Leads NIAID's research response and testifies to Congress through two more international outbreaks. 2022 - Leaves federal service: Steps down in December after 38 years and seven presidents, Republican and Democratic.
05 The better critic
He's been called a murderer before. By someone with a real grievance.
Rand Paul is not the first person to accuse Anthony Fauci of killing people. In 1988 the writer and AIDS activist Larry Kramer published an open letter calling him a liar and a murderer. 'Anthony Fauci, you are a murderer,' he wrote. 'Your refusal to hear the screams of AIDS activists early in the crisis resulted in the deaths of thousands of Queers.' Kramer called him an 'incompetent idiot', compared him to Eichmann, insulted his wife, and later said: 'As far as I was concerned, he was the central focus of evil in the world.'
And here is the difference between a critic and an inquisitor. Kramer had cause - his friends were dying and the government was slow. Fauci did not have him removed by Capitol Police. He met the activists, listened to them, and then changed the system: expanding who could get into clinical trials, opening access to experimental drugs, and bringing patients into the design of the research itself. The National Library of Medicine credits those meetings with exactly that. And the man who called him the central focus of evil in the world came to describe him, per the New Yorker, as 'the only true and great hero' among government officials in the AIDS crisis. That is what happens when an accusation is made in good faith and met in good faith. Nothing like it is going to happen in Dirksen SD-342. Kramer wanted the system changed, and got it. Paul has pursued a prosecution for six years - two criminal referrals, two congressional investigations, 1,141 published pages - and has not produced a criminal charge or a judicial finding that Fauci lied.
Sources: The New Yorker: How Anthony Fauci Became America's Doctor - Kramer's 'murderer' letter and his later verdict; PBS Frontline: Larry Kramer interview, 'I called Dr. Fauci a murderer many times'; National Library of Medicine: Fauci's meetings with ACT UP led to expanded trial inclusion and experimental-drug access; Lasker Foundation: 2007 Mary Woodard Lasker Award for Public Service citation.One accuser, two verdicts
Larry Kramer, 1988: "Anthony Fauci, you are a murderer." The charge: 'Your refusal to hear the screams of AIDS activists early in the crisis resulted in the deaths of thousands of Queers.' Kramer's friends were dying and the federal response was too slow. He had cause. Larry Kramer, on Fauci: "As far as I was concerned, he was the central focus of evil in the world." The hostility was total: Kramer called him an 'incompetent idiot' and a 'pill-pushing' tool of the medical establishment, and compared him to Eichmann. What Fauci did about it: "He let them into the room." The response: The National Library of Medicine credits those meetings with expanding who could enter clinical trials, opening access to experimental drugs, and putting patients inside the research process itself. Larry Kramer, later: "The only true and great hero." The verdict: Kramer, who spent years in a constant rage at Fauci, came to describe him as the only true and great hero among government officials in the AIDS crisis.
06 The bench
Now let's check the credentials of the inquisition.
The man running this trial is Senator Rand Paul - a licensed ophthalmologist with a medical degree from Duke, which is more medicine than most senators bring to the job. The interesting part is what he did with it. In the late 1990s, objecting to a rule that required younger doctors to recertify while older ones were exempt, Paul was a driving force behind forming a rival body: the National Board of Ophthalmology. It lists him as its president, his wife Kelley as vice-president and his father-in-law as secretary. It has certified him since 2005. He is not certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology, his profession's recognised body.
So the man telling the country's leading infectious disease physician that he does not understand virology is a man who responded to a certification rule he disagreed with by helping set up a rival board that has certified him ever since. Paul was the first senator to test positive for COVID in March 2020, declined the vaccine citing natural immunity, and was suspended from YouTube for seven days in August 2021 under its medical misinformation policy after a video about masks. And the campaign he fronts has a hard edge outside the committee room. In August 2022 a man was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison for threatening to kill Fauci and his family. Four months after that sentencing, Elon Musk posted 'My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci' to one of the largest audiences on earth. Steve Bannon had already told his podcast audience he would put Fauci's head 'on a pike'. Trump, before this hearing: 'His ideas were CRAZY!'
Sources: Washington Post: how Rand Paul tried to lead an eye doctors' rebellion (01/02/2015); NBC News: national clearinghouse says Paul is not certified by the recognised board; CBS News: Rand Paul addresses ophthalmology certification questions; PBS NewsHour / AP: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days after misleading video on masks (11/08/2021); US Department of Justice: man sentenced to 37 months for threats against Dr Anthony Fauci; NPR: Twitter permanently suspends Steve Bannon's account after 'beheading' comments; France 24: Elon Musk targets Dr Anthony Fauci in viral tweet, sparking backlash (12/12/2022); JAMA / ACTIV-6 randomised trial: findings do not support using ivermectin for COVID-19.The panel, and what each brought to it
Claim: Sen. Rand Paul: 'Did [Fauci's] actions lead to the largest man-made plague in history?' Receipt: Six years of accusations, two criminal referrals that produced no prosecution, 1,141 pages of another man's diary, and a board certification issued by the rival body he helped found and now presides over. Claim: Sen. Josh Hawley asked the witness what colour the carpet was. Receipt: A stunt to prove the Fifth Amendment refusal was total. It was. That was the entire yield of the exchange, in an inquiry into 1.1 million American deaths. Claim: Sen. Ron Johnson held up what he said were studies on ivermectin. Receipt: Ivermectin is a genuine antiparasitic drug. The NIH-funded ACTIV-6 randomised trial, published in JAMA, concluded its findings 'do not support the use of ivermectin in outpatients with COVID-19'. Claim: Sen. Bernie Moreno repeatedly demanded apologies. Receipt: Directed at a man who had already said, on his lawyers' advice, that he would not be answering any questions. Everyone in the room knew no answer was coming.
07 Verdict
Salem with better lighting and a live stream.
Strip out the theatre and here is the sum of it. A man with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, 38 years of federal service and a hand in a programme credited with saving more than 26 million lives sat in a Senate room while a senator who founded his own certification board asked whether he had caused the largest man-made plague in history. The documentary evidence produced was the man's own private diary, which shows him reasoning carefully and updating as the data arrived. The criminal referrals filed in 2023 and renewed in 2025 produced no prosecution. The step from 'the origin is uncertain' to 'this man did it' has never been taken, because nobody has been able to take it.
The Salem comparison is not decoration; the logic is recognisable. An accusation that cannot be disproved. A tribunal that treats the refusal to confess as further proof of guilt. A crowd outside that made up its mind years ago and now just wants the ritual. The one upgrade on 1692 is that you no longer have to walk to the village square to scream at the accused - now it is a group chat. He may well be held in contempt in August. He has not been shown to have caused a pandemic, because six years of trying has not produced it. Larry Kramer worked out he was wrong about this man. Rand Paul has had six years and is still going. Fauci wrote that two possibilities are not equally probable. He was right, and that is the part they cannot forgive.
Sources: Reuters: the hearing, the Fifth, the contempt vote (29/07/2026); Bush White House archives: the 2008 Medal of Freedom ceremony and citation; Al Jazeera / AP: invoking the Fifth is a constitutional right and does not imply guilt; UNAIDS: PEPFAR saved more than 26 million lives, 2003-2024; The New Yorker: Kramer's journey from 'murderer' to 'the only true and great hero'.The inquisition, scored
Grade F. Six years of investigation. 1,141 pages of a private diary published hunting for a lie. Two criminal referrals that produced no prosecution. The best evidence yielded is a scientist writing that he keeps an open mind. Years spent investigating him: 6+. Pages of private diary published: 1,141. Prosecutions resulting: 0. Presidential medals: 2.
· Source rule
Every claim gets a receipt. Including the inconvenient ones.
This one has a point of view and does not pretend otherwise. So the facts underneath it are stated straight, including the ones that cut against us: the origin of COVID-19 is genuinely unresolved, the intelligence agencies are genuinely split, a Republican-led House subcommittee genuinely concluded a lab leak was most likely, the NIH genuinely did fund coronavirus research in Wuhan, serious scientists genuinely disagree over whether that work met the federal definition of gain-of-function, and that same subcommittee genuinely found Fauci "played semantics" with that definition and gave testimony that was "at a minimum, misleading". All of that is quoted on this page rather than buried. None of it is the same as proving a man knowingly lied to Congress or caused a pandemic, and that is the only claim this page actually disputes.
Core sources: Reuters, NPR, CNN, CBS News, the Associated Press via Al Jazeera and PBS NewsHour, the New Yorker, FactCheck.org, the Washington Post, official US Senate hearing transcripts via govinfo.gov, the US Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Commission on Presidential Debates, the George W. Bush White House archives, UNAIDS, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the US National Library of Medicine, JAMA, the US House Oversight Committee, the US Department of Justice, NBC News and France 24.