Fauci Sets New Standard For Total Transparency
Anthony Fauci established a new federal standard for transparency Wednesday by invoking the Fifth Amendment during a Senate hearing, giving lawmakers the most complete account possible by providing no account at all. Summoned by committee Chairman Rand Paul to discuss COVID-19 origins, federal research funding and pandemic-era records, Fauci declined to answer a series of questions, compressing years of scientific, legal and political dispute into one highly efficient constitutional provision. The breakthrough could reduce future hearings from eight hours of speeches disguised as questions to several minutes of silence disguised as evidence.
Paul hailed the testimony as extraordinarily revealing, noting that each unanswered question supplied senators with another answer they were free to invent. “This was the most informative testimony Congress has ever received, because every time Dr. Fauci declined to answer, we learned another extremely specific fact that he never said,” Paul said. The hearing grew more transparent when Paul ordered Capitol Police to remove Fauci attorney David Schertler, protecting the inquiry from the corrupting influence of legal context during a dispute over constitutional rights. Republicans then considered holding Fauci in contempt for failing to participate in the traditional congressional process, under which witnesses answer questions, senators interrupt those answers, and both parties publish fundraising emails announcing victory before lunch.
President Donald Trump praised the format as a model for accountable government and recommended expanding it across the executive branch. “It was tremendous silence, really perfect silence, and frankly it answered questions that ordinary answers could never answer because answers contain words, which cause many problems,” Trump said. Paul also proposed allowing future witnesses to mail the committee a blank sheet of paper, which senators could interpret according to party affiliation, cable-news commitments and unresolved personal grievances. Under the plan, blank pages would be entered into the record as exhaustive disclosures, while written explanations would be treated as suspicious efforts to conceal whatever lawmakers had already decided. Constitutional experts confirmed that Americans retain an absolute right against self-incrimination, except when exercising it interferes with a senator’s television segment. In Washington, silence is now the fullest possible disclosure.
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