President Joe Biden pardoned former White House COVID-19 adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci for all crimes he may have committed as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The pardon could protect Fauci from the congressional GOP. However, it could also make it easier for Republican investigators to question him in connection with investigations into colleagues and friends because it is expected that he will not be able to invoke the Fifth Amendment in question.
The pardon was one of a slew Biden granted at the last minute to people who may come in the crosshairs of the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, including Gen. Mark Milley and members of the House Jan. 6 investigatory committee.
“The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,” Biden said in a statement. “Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country.”
Fauci headed the largest branch of the National Institutes of Health for nearly four decades and served as a COVID-19 policy adviser to Trump and Biden before he retired from public service in December 2022.
The infectious disease doctor has been under intense scrutiny from Congress for his role in the alleged cover-up of the origins of COVID-19 and for funding possibly dangerous and illegal biomedical research in Wuhan, China.
Although the House investigation into the origins of the pandemic found no direct ties between Fauci and the creation of the virus, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic did find that Fauci and several other NIH leaders influenced the suppression of the theory that COVID-19 came from a lab accident.
The subcommittee also uncovered that a high-level aide to Fauci, Dr. David Morens, may have broken federal records laws to shield his personal friend, Peter Daszak, whose organization EcoHealth Alliance received NIH funds to conduct bat COVID-19 research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Late Friday evening, the Health and Human Services Department finalized the procedure of preventing EcoHealth Alliance from receiving federal funding after the subcommittee’s investigation uncovered that the organization withheld information about experimentation at the Wuhan lab from the NIH and failed to comply with mandatory reporting requirements.
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Biden said Fauci served his country “for more than half a century” and that he “saved countless lives” by managing several health crises, from the HIV/AIDS epidemic to COVID-19.
“The United States is safer and healthier because of him,” Biden said.
Fauci told ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl he appreciated Biden’s pardon because the threat of investigation and prosecution “creates immeasurable and intolerable distress on me and my family.”
“I have committed no crime,” Fauci said, “and there are no possible grounds for any allegation or threat of criminal investigation or prosecution of me.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who engaged in a shouting match with Fauci in 2021 over the scientific definition of gain-of-function research, said the pardon “will only serve as an accelerant to pierce the veil of deception.”
Gain-of-function research, in layman’s terms, is the genetic manipulation of a virus by making it either more infectious to humans or giving it new capabilities to cause disease in different ways. There was a brief moratorium from 2014 to 2017 prohibiting U.S. funding of gain-of-function research out of concern that the practice could spark a global pandemic similar in scale to COVID-19.
Paul has referred Fauci to the Department of Justice twice since the pandemic began nearly five years ago, but to date, Attorney General Merrick Garland has not publicly launched an investigation into the allegations.
The first criminal referral, lodged by Paul shortly after the pair’s Senate committee squabble, alleged that Fauci lied about funding gain-of-function research projects, which were illegal at the time.
The second DOJ referral was made in July 2023 after an email surfaced that confirmed gain-of-function experiments were taking place in Wuhan at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak in China.
“As Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, I will not rest until the entire truth of the coverup is exposed,” Paul said Monday on X.
Fauci’s legal counsel has not responded to requests for comment on Paul’s accusations against the infectious disease doctor.
Legal experts have highlighted that a presidential pardon means the one legally absolved no longer has the right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment. So, Fauci would not legally be able to refuse to answer questions during an investigation.
The Fifth Amendment matter came to light most recently with Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, clearing him of any charges for any crimes he may have committed between Jan. 1, 2014, and Dec. 1, 2024.
Richard Ebright, a chemical biologist who has been an outspoken critic of gain-of-function research, told the Washington Examiner that he hoped it would mean Fauci would be required to testify before Congress multiple times.
Calling the preemptive pardon “a travesty,” Ebright also highlighted that criminal charges could still be brought against those involved with Fauci in possibly illegal actions since only the former NIAID director has been offered the presidential shield.
“The fact that the pardon did not include Fauci’s criminal co-conspirators–not even former NIH Director [Francis] Collins–sets the stage for prosecution of Fauci’s co-conspirators and for full exposure of Fauci’s crimes,” said Ebright in an email.
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Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA), urged Biden behind closed doors to issue preemptive pardons to multiple people who could be targeted by the Trump administration.
The only precedent of a preemptive presidential pardon was when former President Gerald Ford pardoned his predecessor, Richard Nixon, for his involvement in the Watergate scandal.
