The odds of Dr. Anthony Fauci facing federal criminal charges this year surged Wednesday as the former government health official appeared before a Senate committee and declined to answer questions, invoking his Fifth Amendment rights.
The market for who will be charged with a federal crime this year shows Fauci's price rising to 32%.
Dr. Fauci’s notes
Fauci's Senate appearance stems from the release of more than 1,100 pages of personal diary entries he kept throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
The New York Times' Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported that Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky released the diary entries as part of his investigation into whether Fauci lied to Congress about the origins of the virus. Paul contends the entries show a contradiction between what Fauci said publicly and what he believed privately. Fauci has maintained that he believes the virus emerged through natural means, though Stolberg noted that he "has long maintained that he is open to the idea of a lab leak," even while dismissing it as a "conspiracy theory" in the diary.
One of the notes dated Jan. 26, 2020 that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he provided to Paul shows that Dr. Fauci and his team determined that the virus did not originate from a Chinese wet market, but was rather “the amplifier” for the virus.
“Having said that, somewhere the virus jumped from animals to humans,” Dr. Fauci wrote.
Stolberg noted that the diary does not provide "the smoking gun the senator is seeking" but has reopened a political dispute "over the origins of the virus and how history should treat Dr. Fauci."
Paul wrote on X that "what he wrote privately and what he told the country are two different stories."
Other diary entries show Fauci reflecting on the celebrity status he acquired as the public face of the pandemic response, including references to figures such as Julia Roberts, Joan Baez, and Barbra Streisand.
Dr. Fauci’s testimony
Fauci appeared before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday but declined to respond to questions, citing his Fifth Amendment rights.
NBC News reported that Republican members of the committee sharply criticized the decisions Fauci made during the height of the pandemic, accusing him "of providing harmful advice on issues such as lockdowns and of lacking candor on the origins of the coronavirus."
Democrats on the committee “came to Fauci’s defense, painting the hearing as a Republican-led effort to entrap Fauci into committing perjury and using their time to focus criticism on the Trump administration’s health care policies.”
Following Fauci's refusal to testify, Mediaite reported that Paul plans to pursue contempt-of-Congress proceedings.
The takeaway:
Kalshi markets now predict
Dr. Fauci being charged with a federal crime this year: 32%
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