One of the saddest commentaries on the incoming Trump 2.0 regime came in a columm by Jonathan Martin , Politico’s senior political columnist. In it, he included Dr. Anthony Fauci among several current and former “officials who’ve angered Trump and his loyalists” and, according to White House scuttlebutt, may need a preemptive pardon from outgoing President Joe Biden.
It’s important to keep this in perspective. Dr. Fauci has not been credibly accused of wrongdoing, and Martin’s beat is “chronicl[ing] the inside conversations and major trends shaping U.S. politics.” In other words, it’s Washington-style inside baseball, and Martin said it reflects quiet conversations within the White House. He acknowledges:
The conversations were spurred by Trump’s repeated threats [of “retribution”] and quiet lobbying by congressional Democrats, though not by those seeking pardons themselves. “The beneficiaries know nothing,” one well-connected Democrat told me about those who could receive pardons.
So it may not even happen. It looks like a trial balloon, and most reaction, even from Democrats, has ranged from hostile to lukewarm. Even so, the fact that Biden staffers think Fauci may need protection against a frivolous prosecution is chilling.
Now a Distinguished University Professor in Georgetown University’s med school and graduate program in public policy, Dr. Fauci was infectious diseases director at the National Institutes of Health and a key adviser to Presidents Trump and Biden during the COVID-19 pandemic. He’s no stranger to politics — he served under seven presidents and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W Bush — but it’s sad to see him dragged down into the new administration’s partisan fever swamps after 54 years at NIH.
It’s especially sad, in my book, because Fauci lives out my ideal of all the best a scientist and public servant — and a teacher — can aspire to be.
Georgetown President John J. DeGioia put it like this in a university press release when he joined the faculty: “Dr. Fauci has embodied the Jesuit value of being in service to others throughout his career […].” I think in this case, there’s more in play than the usual rah-rah academic rhetoric of a press release. Fauci touched on the same theme of service to others in an entirely convincing way:
“I ask myself, now at this stage in my life, what do I have to offer to society?” [Fauci] said. “And I think, sure, I could do more experiments in the lab and have my lab going. But given what I’ve been through, I think what I have to offer is experience and inspiration to the younger generation of students. … If I accomplish that, I think I’ll make a major contribution to Georgetown.” [Ellipsis in the original.]
All political considerations aside, I think it would be a damn shame if a guy like that is dragged away from the classroom for a political catfight.
In February, after he’d been at Georgetown six months, Fauci spoke at the annual induction ceremony of Alpha Sigma Nu, a national Jesuit student honor society. “The Jesuit call to serve others was again among the key factors that led me to start my career as a physician-scientist by joining the NIH in 1968,” he said. He recalled his work with the AIDS virus in the 1980s and 90s; he later received the presidential award from George W. Bush for it, but at the time it was divisive:
“I did something many of my peers were intimated to do, I invited some of the activists up to my office to engage them in a conversation,” Fauci said. “And when they were not shouting and when I listened carefully, a lot of what they were saying made sense and I realized that if I were in their shoes, I would be doing exactly what they were doing — protesting and demonstrating.
“Loyalty to the Jesuit ideals of caring for and service to others was the consistent driving force for me over those 43 years that I was involved in the AIDS saga,”
In the spring of 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Fauci also spoke of Jesuit ideals to a student group. In a pre-recorded video message to graduates of Jesuit schools nationwide, he said:
“Currently our lives have been upended by a truly historic global pandemic. I am profoundly aware that graduating during this time—and virtually, without your friends, classmates and teachers close by—is extremely difficult,” Dr. Fauci said. “However, please hang in there. We need you to be smart, strong and resilient. With discipline and empathy, we will all get through this together.” [Link in the original.]
According to America magazine, the video hookup originated with Daniel Lahart SJ, president of Regis High School in New York City where Fauci went to high school (and played on the basketball team although he’s only 5’7″). America’s James T. Keane reported:
Father Lahart contacted Dr. Fauci’s office and asked if he could do a second video that was not specific to Regis, and that could be shared with other Jesuit high schools. “It was an audacious ask of someone who is incredibly busy, and concerned with worldwide health,” Father Lahart commented. “But he speaks so easily about what his Jesuit education means to him, so I presumed it wouldn’t take him long to film either one.”
“Every Jesuit graduate can take pride in knowing that they are part of an educational system that is nearly five centuries old, and has impacted the lives or so many people around the world,” Father Lahart continued. “Today, we also can all take pride that the man who is probably the most trusted person in the United States is a graduate of a Jesuit high school and a Jesuit college. He takes great pride in his Jesuit education, and as he proudly professes, it has formed his life and his career.”
Sadly, COVID-19 became a partisan issue, and Dr. Fauci no longer has a claim to be the most trusted person in America.
As early as the fall of 2020, he was discreetly jangling with then-President Trump over testing, mask mandates and what he saw as a ” ‘building distrust’ in public health agencies,” as CNN described it. Later, in a 2023 interview in Science magazine, he looked back on COVID days:
The far radical right was angry, and when people are angry, they need to channel their anger, otherwise it fizzles out. You have to have a devil. I was trying my very best to get people to take the virus seriously when the president was not taking it seriously. When the vaccine came, I was telling people to get vaccinated because it’s lifesaving. I was the person who was on television almost every night who wasn’t afraid to tell it like it is.
And I happened to be the guy that really pissed off the far right, by being the person who spoke up against […] Trump. When you look, I never really disparaged him at all. I always said, “What he’s saying is not true.” The president was very little fazed. After I would say it, he would be just as friendly to me. The staff around him went crazy. [Link in the original.]
While Fauci appears to be well down on Trump’s enemies list, he has powerful — or vocal — enemies in Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Republicans on the House Oversight Committee. Paul, a libertarian eye doctor with a penchant for criticizing medical and scientific institutions, is set to chair the Senate Oversight Committee in the Trump 2.0 administration.
Just after the November election, Paul promised to open new investigations into his claim that “government leaders have not been forthcoming about U.S. ties to virus research conducted in Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus outbreak was first detected in 2019.” He has been especially critical of Fauci, and according to the Washington Post:
[…] has repeatedly said Fauci should “go to prison” for allegedly lying to Congress, saying Fauci’s private comments about the possible origins of the virus and the government’s response have conflicted with what Fauci said in congressional testimony.
“Fauci,” the Post added, “declined to comment.”
I wouldn’t either.
Equally vocal have been the House Republicans. After a combative but inconclusive subcommittee hearing in June, oversight committee chair James Comer, R-Ky., threatened a criminal investigation. The Hill reported Comer’s remarks like this:
“I think the American people saw the slick-talker who fooled America, who has probably done more harm to public education, he did more harm to our national debt and to our economy than any single human being in my lifetime,” Comer said in an interview on Newsmax after the hearing, repeating claims lobbed at Fauci earlier that day.
“Hopefully, we can take his words today and continue to try to gather evidence and take steps to try to hold him in criminal wrongdoing, because I believe that the majority of Americans realize that Dr. Fauci made costly mistakes, he’s lied about them and he’s tried to cover it up,” he added.
At the same hearing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., refused to call Fauci “Doctor” until admonished to do. Her tone dripping with sarcasm, she added, “We should be writing a criminal referral because you should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. You belong in prison, Dr. Fauci.”
Fauci wasn’t given time to answer, but he has consistently denied any wrongdoing. A few days after the hearing, he revisited it on the ABC talk show The View, when co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former White House press aide, noted that with AIDS, Ebola and other diseases, he “never faced the backlash” he did over COVID. “Did you see that coming?” she asked. “We watched it in real time.” Fauci replied:
No, it was really unexpected. Because, as Alyssa said, I served and advised seven presidents, Democrat and Republican, both sides of the aisle. There are always disagreements, of course. But that’s why we have a great country because you have people with different ideological views.
But the disagreements were always associated with civility, with respect for each other and respect for institutions in the government. So you could have a disagreement, but at the end you try and compromise. What happened with COVID, as I think was represented by the hearing a few weeks ago, was just pure ad hominem and vitriol. And that really took me by surprise. I thought there would be the give and take and respect each other’s disagreements.
That’s the thing that worries me not only about what I have to face, but also about the direction of the country and the social order of the democracy. It’s very threatening I think.
With a little prompting by co-host Whoopi Goldberg, Fauci also mentioned his Jesuit formation.
Well, when I was getting my education in high school, Latin and Greek was an important part of our classical training. It was actually at Regis High School, a few blocks from here, a Jesuit school. And one of the things that they mentioned to us when things got down and you felt the world was caving in on you was Illegitimi non carborundum, which means ‘Don’t let the bastards wear you down.’ Boy did that hold true.
Boy, did it ever
Links and Citations
Rebecca Beitsch and Alex Gangitano, “Democrats divided over Biden talk of preemptive pardons,” The Hill, Dec. 7, 2024 https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5027254-biden-considers-pardons-for-trump-critics/.
Jon Cohen, “Anthony Fauci on becoming the ‘devil’ and a warning for his successor,” Science, Sept. 25, 2024 https://www.science.org/content/article/anthony-fauci-becoming-devil-and-warning-his-successor.
Dan Diamond and Rachel Roubein, “Rand Paul vows to investigate ‘covid coverup’ as Senate panel’s new chair,” Washington Post, Nov. 14, 2024 https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/11/14/rand-paul-covid-origins-senate-oversight-committee-chairman/
“Dr. Anthony Fauci talks about the challenges of advising former President Trump on COVID,” ABC News, June 2024 https://abcnews.go.com/Health/dr-anthony-fauci-talks-challenges-advising-former-president/story?id=111283309 [a transcript of Fauci’s appearance on The View. Video of the episode is available on YouTube, “Dr. Anthony Fauci Talks COVID Response Under Former President Trump In New Book ‘On Call’,” June 20, 2024 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1_QWFeoexc.
“Dr. Anthony Fauci To Join Georgetown Faculty as Distinguished University Professor,” news release, Georgetown University, June 26, 2023 https://www.georgetown.edu/news/dr-anthony-fauci-to-join-georgetown-faculty-as-distinguished-university-professor/.
“Dr. Fauci Reflects on How He Has Lived Out Jesuit Values in His Career,” news release, Georgetown University, Feb. 22, 2024 https://www.georgetown.edu/news/fauci-reflects-on-jesuit-values-in-his-career/.
Shelby Lin Erdman, “A ‘building distrust’ in public health agencies is ‘the elephant in the room,’ Fauci says,” CNN, Oct. 28, 2020 https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/22/health/fauci-distrust-building-coronavirus/index.html.
Sarah Fortinsky, “Comer says GOP seeking evidence of Fauci’s ‘criminal wrongdoing’,” The Hill, June 4, 2024 https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4702165-comer-says-gop-seeking-evidence-fauci-criminal-wrongdoing/.
James T. Keane, “Dr. Anthony Fauci to Jesuit grads: ‘Now is the time for us to care selflessly about one another’,” America, May 12, 2020 https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/05/12/dr-anthony-fauci-jesuit-grads-now-time-us-care-selflessly-about-one-another.
Jonathan Martin, “Biden White House Is Discussing Preemptive Pardons for Those in Trump’s Crosshairs,” Politico, Dec. 4, 2024 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/12/04/biden-white-house-pardons-00192610.
Lauren Sforza, “GOP chair reprimands Greene for refusing to call Fauci ‘doctor’,” The Hill, June 3, 2024 https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4700580-greene-fauci-doctor-reprimand/.
[Uplinked Dec. 7, 2024]
Ordinary Time 
Illegitimi non carborundum … yep. Definitely applies these days.
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