“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?’ Now I know the answer to that question. When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded, politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors, and the Fake News Media, you have no choice. Accordingly, under the advice of my counsel and for all of the above reasons, I declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution.”
After the events of the past few days in Congress, you could be forgiven for assuming that this quote came from America’s COVID bogeyman Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Whatever you think of him, Fauci has certainly been the subject of a witch hunt.
And let’s be honest here: who hasn’t thought that someone pleading the Fifth must have something to hide?
In many cases, they probably do.
But the quote did not come from the 85-year-old former chief medical adviser, who invoked the Fifth Amendment 111 times in an uncomfortable hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Committee on July 29.
It came from Donald Trump, 80, who reportedly benefitted from his constitutional right against self-incrimination 440 times on Aug. 10, 2022.
During a four-hour deposition given to lawyers from New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office, the only question Trump answered was to give his name.
Trump and his sons were ultimately ordered to pay over $450 million in the civil lawsuit brought by James after a three-year probe into their organization’s business practices.
The rights and wrongs of the case are another issue, as, indeed, is the witch hunt he instigated against James in retribution after claiming her investigation was politically motivated.
Similarly, Fauci’s actions during the pandemic, when he was the public face of U.S. efforts to combat the disease under both Trump during his first term and Joe Biden, have been distracted by a performative sideshow that has highlighted the Trumpian hypocrisy at the heart of the MAGA Republican Party.
MAGA Sen. Josh Hawley, said to be considering a presidential run of his own, spent his time during last Wednesday’s hearing trying to humiliate Fauci, asking him questions like the color of his tie and the carpet.
Fauci replied, on the advice of his lawyer, that he was pleading the Fifth.
After the hearing, Hawley inadvertently embarrassed the president, posting on X: “Innocent people don’t hide behind the Fifth Amendment.”
On Thursday, Hawley and his colleagues on the Homeland Security Committee voted along party lines, 8-5, to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress.
“The chair directed Anthony Fauci to answer. He refused,” said Republican Rand Paul before the vote. “That is what we are voting on today—not his opinions, not his policies, not anything he said from the podium six years ago.
“We are voting on whether a witness who has received the benefit of a federal pardon can be ordered by this committee to answer questions and then defy that order without consequence.”
Although Biden granted Fauci a preemptive pardon because Republicans had pledged to pursue him after Trump’s return to the White House, it would not have covered last week’s hearing. His lawyers warned him he could be prosecuted for perjury if he was caught out lying.
On Thursday, Fauci’s lawyer said the “crude political stunt” was intended to “punish Dr. Fauci for exercising his constitutional right.”
Trump is the only president to have ever invoked the Fifth Amendment.
Former White House aide Oliver North, former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay, “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and baseball slugger Mark McGwire are some of the more notable past users.
To be clear, the Fifth Amendment reads:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Trump no doubt had his reasons for invoking it in 2022. It did not occur to Letitia James to seek criminal charges against him.
If U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro decides to prosecute Fauci for contempt, then it follows that the Democrats will seek a similar redress against Trump if and when they return to power. That day could come as soon as November.
It is yet another assault on our Constitution, a crumbling of a right that has endured the passage of time.
It is also another sad indictment on a party that has become so blindly devoted to an all-powerful president that it can no longer recognize its own abject hypocrisy.
