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Dr. Anthony Fauci faced blistering criticism from families of COVID-19 victims Wednesday after the former public health official refused to answer a single question from lawmakers about his handling of the US response to the pandemic.
Fauci stonewalled the Senate Homeland Security Committee, invoking the Fifth Amendment over 100 times, as lawmakers grilled him on COVID-19’s origin and details in a personal diary that chronicled his transformation from government official to celebrity as millions of Americans suffered from the disease.
Former Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean, who lost both her mother-in-law and father-in-law to COVID-19, accused the former COVID czar of putting fame ahead of the American people – calling his repeated invocation of the Fifth Amendment “another slap in the face” to grieving families.
“It was extremely difficult for me to watch the hearings today to witness a man who, like our former disgraced governor Andrew Cuomo, used a pandemic to enrich himself, lie to the public and decide that fame was more important than the lives of millions of Americans,” Dean told The Post.
“His reliance on the Fifth Amendment was another slap in the face of family members who lost loved ones because of failed leadership and his deadly decisions,” she fumed. “I fear that there will never be justice for the thousands of parents and grandparents who died alone.”
Dean, whose in-laws died in a New York assisted living facility, argued that Fauci “wanted to be the hero of the COVID 19 pandemic, but instead showed the world what a coward he truly is.”
Other families who lost loved ones during the pandemic shared Dean’s frustration.
“I think it’s rather disingenuous that he’s pleading the Fifth hundreds of times when all you did was see him on TV for days and months on end where he was effectively the be all end all related to what’s going on with COVID,” Vince D’Amico, a business development director from Chicago who lost his parents, Carlo and Edda, to COVID-19, told The Post. .
D’Amico, 59, said Fauci positioned himself as the “central focus” of the pandemic response, and while he said he doesn’t spend much time wondering about the “what-ifs,” he found Fauci’s refusal to answer questions deeply frustrating.
“He was the mouthpiece. He was the decision maker. He was the authority, right?” D’Amico said. “Whether or not that authority was misguided by his personal ambitions, it’s hard to say.”
Ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-Ky.) released Fauci’s diary, which was filled with the former public health official’s egotistical ideas and a bizarre “fame fixation” – providing insight into the mind of the doctor that D’Amico also found vexing.
“The position that he’s taken after he was just in front of the world for three years, and now all of the sudden, especially with his diary coming out and seeing how he was a lot more interested in his own personal fame, that’s frustrating to say the least,” D’Amico said.
Paul said he plans to schedule a committee vote next week to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress.
Fauci received a preemptive, unconditional federal pardon from former President Joe Biden before he left office, making him immune to criminal charges for crimes committed between 2014 and the end of 2025.
Any crimes committed by the former COVID czar during his testimony before the committee Wednesday would not be covered by the sweeping pardon.
Victor Nava contributed reporting.
English (US)