There's nothing inherently wrong with invoking the Fifth Amendment. The perception that anyone who pleads the Fifth to protect themselves from self-incrimination is only hiding guilt is wrong. Innocent people are often intimidated or tricked by those in power into implicating themselves. Others might get nervous under oath and worry about misspeaking under pressure. 

Former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci, who appeared before the Senate committee investigating the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, is not one of those people. 

There is some legal question as to whether a person who has received a pardon loses his ability to plead the Fifth since the assertion is predicated on shielding them from future crimes, like lying to Congress. 

Fauci, after all, could admit to personally creating COVID-19 in a lab and then spreading it himself, and there is still nothing the government could do to him. Former President Joe Biden gave him an unprecedented pardon for any federal offenses related to any pandemic-era actions between Jan. 1, 2014, and Jan. 19, 2025. 

The long-term consequences of blanket pardons are exceptionally corrosive. It's difficult to imagine anything that could incentivize criminality and abuse of power with the government more than knowing a president will give you a get-out-of-jail-free card at the end of a term. 

The entire point of the hearings, Fauci contends, is to trap him. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who released a cache of diary entries and emails earlier this week, says he is obsessed with prosecuting him, evident by his "repeated slanderous comments" and release of unredacted personal documents, which were aimed at "embarrassing and intimidation."  

Perhaps. But Fauci, who was employed by the federal government for 54 years, director of the NIAID for 38, has likely delivered thousands of speeches and appeared in front of Congress somewhere around 250 times. If he can't offer clear and honest testimony under oath, who can? 

The fact is that being truthful under oath would mean explaining, among many other things:

Why, though Fauci knew COVID-19's fatality rate was likely at 0.2%-0.3%, and "acting like a bad influenza," he told Congress that it was "10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu."

Why, after privately expressing frustration regarding the efficacy of lockdowns in flattening the curve, Fauci not only advocated closing businesses and schools nationally but framed anyone who was skeptical as villains.

Why Fauci publicly contended that he had absolutely nothing to do with school closings yet privately took credit for frightening the mayor of New York, the governor of California and others into shutting down their states.

Why Fauci privately acknowledged that the wet market in Wuhan "was not the source" of the virus but the "amplifier" and yet continued contending, with great scientific certitude, that the virus jumping from bats to humans was "absolutely totally compatible" with the available evidence but the theory of the virus being created in the Wuhan Institute of Virology was a "very, very, very, very remote possibility."

Committee Democrats, incidentally, declined to rebut any Republican criticisms aimed at Fauci or speak on any of the problems of the pandemic response. Many of these Democrats had not treated Fauci's word as indisputable truth and smeared anyone who questioned his authoritarian remedies as if they were members of a death cult. Instead, Democrats used their time to highlight the spread of measles cases under anti-vaccine activist and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

It's an important topic. The problem, though, is that Fauci and other public health officials who lied and manipulated the public under the banner of "science" have a lot to do with the collapse of trust in the institutions that help fight measles outbreaks. Failing to get any accountability or full transparency from those who botched the COVID pandemic response only fuels more suspicion and skepticism about vaccines.  

And, make no mistake, avoiding accountability and transparency are the real reasons Fauci took the Fifth.

David Harsanyi is a senior writer at the Washington Examiner. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books – the most recent, "How To Kill a Republic," available now. His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post and numerous other publications. 

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