Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. advocated during a Monday interview for the creation of “a truth commission” to hold former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci accountable for his actions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
Former President Joe Biden preemptively pardoned Fauci in the final hours of his presidency on Jan. 20. Daily Caller News Foundation co-founder Tucker Carlson remarked on “The Tucker Carlson Show” that it seemed as though Fauci was currently “beyond the reach of the law,” which Kennedy said he “generally” agreed with, before suggesting a “truth commission.”
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“Yeah, I think generally, unless there was a truth commission, which they did, and as you know, in South Africa, they did it in Central America after the 1980s wars there,” Kennedy said. “And they were very, very helpful to those societies. And I think we should probably do something like that now.”
“And in those cases, what happens is you have a commission that hears testimony on what exactly happened. Anybody who comes and volunteers to testify truthfully is then given immunity from prosecution,” he continued. “But so that at least the public knows who did what. And people who are called and don’t take that deal and perjure themselves, they then can be prosecuted criminally.”
Fauci’s pardon spans back to 2014, covering his tenure as a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force and his time as chief medical advisor to Biden. Fauci has faced accusations of lying to Congress and evading Freedom of Information Act requests.
Fauci has asserted that COVID-19 was a “natural occurrence” and has disputed the possibility that the subawards NIAID granted to the Wuhan Institute of Virology could have helped fund the creation of the virus. Experts have suggested that Fauci perjured himself multiple times during congressional testimony, including his claim that it was inconceivable for the viruses he helped finance to have become COVID-19.
“The viruses that were studied under the subawards to the Wuhan Institute … those viruses were phylogenetically so far removed from SARS-CoV-2 that it is molecularly impossible for those viruses to have evolved from SARS COV2,” he testified to Congress in June 2024.
Former federal prosecutor Jim Trusty also argued on Jan. 21 that Fauci’s pardon could leave him vulnerable to committing perjury.
“I think the biggest danger for him at this point won’t be some sort of substantive crime. It would be false statements. I mean, he’s already given inconsistent statements over the years. So getting him to kind of rehash that could lead to some exposure,” Trusty said. “I’m not a huge fan of the substitute of like, perjury traps for actually substantive investigations. But … it’ll be interesting to see guys like Fauci, who have no Fifth Amendment privilege, having to endure some serious questioning.”
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