Connecticut U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal has blackened U.S. Senator Rand Paul with an imputed charge of McCarthyism.
Katherine Pugh, a reporter for Just the News, writes:
“A Democratic senator
accused the GOP committee chair of employing similar tactics to former Sen.
Joseph McCarthy, known for leading aggressive anti-communist investigations, at
a contentious hearing with former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases Director Anthony Fauci on Tuesday … Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.,
cited two X posts by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., from December of 2024 and 2025 that
were mentioned in a statement by Fauci's attorney, David Schertler, after being
thrown out of the Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing for trying to make
a statement as his client repeatedly invoked the 5th Amendment to avoid
answering questions … Paul's posts read: ‘the power of some of us must be used
for good, like putting Fauci in jail,’ and ‘I want to give him a subpoena and a
jail cell.’
“Blumenthal said both
statements foster a ‘well-founded fear’ that the hearing is an effort to ‘trap
Dr. Fauci in some kind of criminal wrongdoing,’ which is not a congressional
hearing's purpose to him.
"’During some of
the dark days in this body, under Senator Joe McCarthy, it became standard
operating procedure to seek that kind of prosecutorial objective,’ Blumenthal
continued.
“McCarthy was known
for his aggressive and unproven accusations against government officials,
specifically during 1954's Army-McCarthy hearings. He ultimately faced a Senate
censure - a formal, public statement of disapproval that reprimands
unacceptable behavior - and died in 1957.
"’We should not
be part of a rerun of that kind of effort,’ Blumenthal said.
“The Democratic
senator then read aloud a statement issued by Schertler, clarifying that it was
in reference to Paul, and asked it to be included in the record: ‘This
year's-long public crusade against Dr. Fauci makes one thing clear: this is not
a serious effort to seek information from Dr. Fauci in a transcribed interview
for a valid legislative purpose. You are single-mindedly fixated on seeing Dr.
Fauci prosecuted for imaginary crimes, and you are so invested in that outcome
that you have created a personal brand around it.’
While his client, Fauci, was refusing to submit testimony to
Congress through a questionable 5th Amendment plea, Schertler attempted to
respond for his client and was properly ejected from the hearing room. No matter: Blumenthal read Schertler
statement into the legislative record anyway.
“Fauci has ‘saved
lives,’ Blumenthal continued. He noted that Republicans are eagerly rebranding
the former NIAID director, who invoked his Fifth Amendment right during the
hearing to decline answering questions, as a villain to distract from ‘their
own failure to protect Americans from soaring healthcare costs.’”
Both U.S. Senators Rand Paul and Josh Hawley had some
good-natured fun commenting on Fauci’s repeated invocation of the Fifth Amendment,
even on those occasions when an honest answer to a question honestly put could
not criminally ensnare Fauci.
SEN. PAUL: In
the red folder on your table is a copy of Section 192 of Title 2 of the U.S.
Code. Your counsel has been provided a copy as well. That section makes it a
crime for a witness appearing under subpoena to refuse to answer any question
pertinent to the question under inquiry. Do you have that in front of you?
FAUCI: On the
advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under
the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
SEN. RAND
PAUL: Let the record reflect that the witness has refused to answer whether
there is a folder in front of him based on his Fifth Amendment right.
Fauci, responsible commentators
should note, was given blanket immunity by the Biden administration; that means
nothing done or said by Fauci prior to the grant of blanket immunity is
prosecutable. Immunity of this kind renders redundant 5th Amendment
pleas by those hoping to escape public scrutiny. Blumenthal, for 20 years Connecticut’s
Attorney General, has himself used immunity to loosen the tongues of witnesses
to possible prosecutable crimes, a common practice of any prosecution agency. Prosecutors,
as a matter of course, often seek to produce in witnesses “a well-founded fear”
that their testimony may lead to prosecution because they want to elicit true
testimony from hostile witnesses. Everyone discussing these matters should
recall that those posing questions in legitimate legislative hearings have
themselves no prosecutorial powers. Questions are not thumbscrews: That has
been and should be the operative principle of all attorneys general, state and
federal, including Blumenthal.
At the conclusion of Fauci’s non-testimony,
Paul noted that Fauci had no proper right to invoke the 5th
amendment precisely because he had been graced with a blanket immunity from
prosecution by Biden: "Because you refuse to answer, citing a privilege
that is unsupported because of your pardon, and after being denied to do so,
this committee has scheduled a vote next week on a resolution certifying your
contempt."
People testifying before legislative
committees have an obligation to say the truth, the chief purposes of the oath
to which those testifying swear: “Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the
testimony that you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, so help you God?” As prescribed by Federal Rule of Evidence 603
and customary congressional practice, the oath to tell the truth in
congressional testimony is a formal, legally binding promise—either by oath or
affirmation—that your testimony will be truthful.
Blumenthal knows all this. And he
should be possessed of “well-founded fear” that his constituents, who will be
voting for or against his continuance in office during the upcoming election,
know that he knows it.
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