Trump weighs in on Fauci, says ‘maybe he should’ face prosecution
When it comes to Dr. Anthony Fauci, Republican hysterics have been quite excessive for several years, though the problem is arguably getting worse. Just this week, for example, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin blamed the immunologist for the U.S. response to the pandemic and put “the deaths of millions” at Fauci’s feet.
“How much bigger a crime has ever been committed in all of history?” the conspiratorial GOP senator asked rhetorically.
Hours earlier, Johnson and every other Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted to hold Fauci in contempt because he exercised his constitutional rights during a hearing a week earlier, repeatedly invoking the Fifth Amendment in response to a rather transparent perjury trap.
The panel’s chairman, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, said he would refer Fauci to the Justice Department for prosecution on his own, bypassing a vote on the Senate floor for the time being.
If Donald Trump’s DOJ actually were to try and pursue a criminal case against Fauci, it would likely face long odds in the courts; but does the president want to see one of the nation’s most accomplished and celebrated scientists charged anyway?
A reporter posed the question to the Republican shortly after the committee vote.
“Well, you know they prosecuted [White House adviser] Peter Navarro, and they prosecuted [former White House official] Steve Bannon, two very decent people, over something that essentially was never prosecuted before,” the president replied.
He added, “But [then-Attorney General] Merrick Garland prosecuted two very decent people and sent them to jail. I wasn’t president. I would have given them a pardon in two seconds, but this was after I left. They waited until after I left and then they prosecuted these two people, and they ought to be ashamed of themselves.”
Trump concluded, “So when you see that happen, you sort of say, maybe [Fauci] should [be prosecuted]. What he did is far more serious than a lot of crimes, frankly.”
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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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