Anthony Fauci caught in the trap of Trumpian anti-intellectualism

Anthony Fauci appeared on 29 July before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, having been summoned by its chairman, the Republican Senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul. He explained that he would invoke the Fifth Amendment because Paul had already publicly announced his intention to send him “behind bars” and because the hearing appeared to be designed to elicit a statement that could be used as grounds for a new charge of perjury. He therefore refused to answer more than a hundred questions, whilst his lawyer was ejected from the chamber and Paul announced a vote to find him guilty of contempt of Congress. The resolution is the first item on the agenda for the Committee’s meeting scheduled for 5 August.

The scene could be interpreted as the latest episode in the personal feud between two doctors who, since the early months of the pandemic, have been clashing in front of the cameras in Congress. This interpretation captures a real element, because Paul has turned his conflict with Fauci into a private vendetta nurtured for years, with calls for criminal charges, referrals to the Department of Justice and statements in which the final outcome of the investigation was already a foregone conclusion. In July 2023, he filed an initial criminal complaint; in July 2025, he renewed it, also challenging the validity of the pardon granted by Joe Biden; in 2026, he became chair of the Committee, summoned Fauci, released over a thousand pages of his diaries without redacting personal data, and prepared the contempt proceedings.

Paul’s obsession centres on the psychopathology of power, but its institutional application is now firmly entrenched in American politics, as a significant section of the Republican Party has recognised that hatred of Fauci is a resource to be exploited to their own advantage. The immunologist who headed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for thirty-eight years, serving both Republican and Democratic presidents and tackling AIDS, anthrax, Ebola and Covid, has been reduced to the very embodiment of everything that the Trumpist movement regards as hostile – that is, the embodiment of expertise that places limits on political will.

Decisions taken during the pandemic may be subject to criticism, as may the funding granted by the National Institutes of Health, the oversight of research conducted in Wuhan, and the public statements made by those who held such high-level responsibilities. Even the indictment of David Morens, a former senior adviser to the NIAID, for the alleged destruction and removal of federal documents makes it legitimate to demand that every individual’s conduct be investigated. However, a legally sound process should reconstruct the facts, distinguish between responsibilities and allow the conclusion to follow the evidence; in this case, Fauci’s guilt had been proclaimed before the hearing was convened, whilst the hearing served to produce the evidence needed to justify a punishment that had long been promised.

The question of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 remains unresolved, with differing assessments even amongst US intelligence agencies, whilst published scientific evidence continues to support, above all, a zoonotic origin. The distinction between research capable of modifying certain properties of a virus and the regulatory category of particularly dangerous experiments has also fuelled terminological controversies that cannot be resolved by retroactively choosing a definition to turn a response into perjury. A Republican-led House subcommittee, having investigated the matter in 2024, found no evidence linking Fauci to any wrongdoing; over 150 scientists and doctors have now pointed out that no credible evidence has been produced to support the most serious allegations levelled against him.

This does not prevent the process from achieving its objective, because the objective is not to clarify the origin of the pandemic. The complexity of the evidence is incompatible with a political machine that needs a recognisable culprit and regards every hesitation as a confession, every change of judgement as a lie, and every discussion amongst researchers as proof of a secret agreement. Fauci’s diaries reveal the uncertainties that accompanied the investigation into a newly emerged virus – uncertainties that had already been largely recounted in his memoirs and interviews; selected and disseminated by those who had vowed to imprison him, those very same uncertainties are now presented as evidence of a conspiracy.

Trumpian anti-intellectualism is not merely a distrust of experts; in reality, it fundamentally denies the existence of any method, independent of power, for establishing what is true, replacing verification with loyalty and technical dissent with suspicion of treason. Science thus becomes one of the defeated factions; its representatives may be treated as officials of the previous regime; and error – which is inevitable when managing a new crisis – retroactively takes on a criminal nature when it has contradicted the victor’s preferences.

Fauci is the ideal target to satisfy the schadenfreude of those who have interpreted the pandemic as a conspiracy by the elite against the people, because his trial allows years of resentment to be channelled into a visible punishment – the longed-for handcuffs for a scientist – and a foretaste of that ‘Nuremberg for science’ so often called for in our part of the world as well. The imprisonment evoked by Paul constitutes the narrative conclusion demanded by a conspiracy-theory community that has been promised that, behind the masks, vaccines and restrictions, lies a deliberate crime. Collective suffering is thus attributed to the actions of a single man, and his public shaming restores to his followers the illusion that their beliefs have finally prevailed over the institutions that had refuted them, and that evil has, in the end, been punished, in favour of the reason they have always believed they possessed.

The pre-emptive pardon granted by Democratic President Joe Biden in January 2025 was explicitly intended to protect Fauci from unjustified and politically motivated proceedings. The decision was problematic because it shielded an official in advance from possible judicial investigations, but subsequent events have shown the danger it was intended to prevent. The pardon is now being presented as evidence of guilt, whilst Paul argues that it would deprive Fauci of the right to refuse to testify; at the same time, any inaccuracy made after the pardon could constitute a new offence not covered by the measure. The hearing has therefore created a situation in which silence can be prosecuted as contempt and speech can form the basis of a charge of perjury. Legal experts themselves note that the possibility of prosecuting Fauci faces constitutional obstacles that remain unresolved.

The message intended for the scientific community falls into this trap. Anyone who accepts a public office must be aware that no career, no service rendered and no scientific documentation will be able to protect them when a political majority decides to make them the scapegoat for a crisis. The researcher called upon to advise the government learns that a cautious forecast may be re-examined years later as evidence of deception, whilst the civil servant defending the autonomy of their agency realises that the next change of government may expose them to proceedings orchestrated by those who have already announced the punishment.

Democracy does not require scientists to govern, but rather that the government be subject to constraints external to its own will, including scientific evidence, professional expertise and procedures capable of distinguishing established facts from erroneous hypotheses. When political power can choose a despised expert, declare him guilty before its supporters and use parliamentary instruments to send him to prison, the force of facts is replaced by the fait accompli of authority. The persecution of Anthony Fauci therefore concerns far more than the assessment of the pandemic: it shows what fate awaits any institution tasked with setting reality against the demands of power, when those in government believe they no longer need to answer to anything other than their own majority – and ultimately, to nothing other than their own will.