Why Republicans should think twice about condemning those who invoke the Fifth Amendment
Ahead of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s appearance before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, ostensibly to discuss the origins of Covid-19, Republicans made no effort to hide their goal. The whole point — the only point — of the hearing was to try to lay a trap for the longtime public health pioneer.
On his last day as president early last year, Joe Biden pardoned Fauci as part of an effort to shield him from political prosecutions, and so GOP officials realized (and publicly acknowledged) that if they’re going to tear down the 85-year-old immunologist, they’ll need to try to get him to perjure himself.
Ideally, with roughly three months remaining before the midterm elections, Republicans would have other objectives on their minds, but as became clear during Wednesday’s committee hearing (given how utterly bonkers the proceedings were, I use the word “hearing” loosely), it became clear that GOP senators can’t shake their seething hatred for one of the nation’s most accomplished and celebrated scientists.
Fauci, of course, faced a straightforward choice: He could play the Republicans’ game and hope for the best, or he could follow the advice of his attorneys and refuse to hand GOP senators the rope with which to hang him. Fauci wisely chose the latter path and repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment. It followed Fauci telling the committee’s chairman, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, that his “unhinged obsession” had left him with little choice.
Predictably, the public learned very little — except, as Dr. Rachael Bedard explained in a New York Times opinion piece, that “show trials are bad for democracy and do nothing to get us closer to either truth or consensus” — though I was especially interested in some of the partisan reactions to the ridiculous display.
During the proceedings, for example, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri argued that Fauci didn’t have the right to plead the Fifth, which as my MS NOW colleague Jordan Rubin explained, is a tough argument to take seriously. Equally as notable was what the senator said after the hearing.
“No honest person pleads the Fifth,” Hawley wrote via social media. He echoed the line on Fox News hours later.
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Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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