The legal vise surrounding Dr. Anthony Fauci is tightening as congressional Republicans intensify their efforts to uncover what the former COVID czar was really doing behind the scenes during the pandemic.
According to RedState, the pressure escalated sharply after Faucis appearance before Congress, where he refused potentially in violation of federal law to answer lawmakers questions, prompting the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday to vote to hold him in contempt of Congress. It now falls to President Joe Bidens Department of Justice (DOJ) to decide whether to pursue criminal charges against the longtime federal health bureaucrat, a decision that will test whether the law applies equally to powerful figures aligned with the left.
The controversy has deepened with the revelation that a copy of Faucis COVID-era iPhone data has been obtained by the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI). That data has now been downloaded, and Republican investigators are poring over it to determine what Fauci was doing, what he was saying, and with whom he was communicating during some of the most consequential months in recent American history.
Johnson appeared on the Friday night edition of NewsNations Katie Pavlich Tonight to disclose that the contents of the phone are raising serious questions. Independent journalist Catherine Herridge, who attended the contentious Fauci hearing and was guest-hosting the program, had teased earlier in the broadcast that Johnson had significant new information to share with the public.
EXCLUSIVE: THOUSANDS OF TEXTS RECOVERED FROM COPY OF DR. ANTHONY FAUCI'S PHONE SAYS @SenRonJohnson, Herridge posted on X, noting that Johnsons investigations subcommittee had secured the data and promising more details on the 10 p.m. Eastern broadcast. The Wisconsin senator, while cautious about revealing too much too soon, confirmed that his team is working with a massive volume of material, including tens of thousands of messages and hundreds of recorded calls.
There's a lot of information on there. Over 34,000 texts, I think 522 voicemail messages... there's a lot to go through, Johnson told Herridge, underscoring the scope of the potential evidence. He explained that the phone is believed to have been in use from 2014 until just days before Fauci departed the National Institutes of Health in December 2022, covering not only the pandemic but years of pre-COVID activity inside the federal health bureaucracy.
Johnson stressed that transparency is a priority, but he cautioned that the process will not be instantaneous. This is not going to be a document dump, he said. I also need to preserve documents for our investigation. We are interviewing other people that he may be texting. And if youre going to get truthful answers out of people, you cant necessarily show them all your investigatory material, as well."
He added that he intends to share relevant findings with the American people while still protecting the integrity of the probe. So, again, Im not going to hold this close to the vest when there are things that the public needs to see. Im hoping to work very closely with Senator Rand Paul and his staff and release these things jointly."
The most striking early discovery, Johnson revealed, is that Fauci one of the most powerful and connected officials in Washington during COVID had only three contacts saved in his phone. I cant and my staff cant guarantee that everything was preserved. What is odd is most of those text messages are associated with a phone number. He only had three contacts, which is pretty odd, Johnson said, raising the specter of deliberate efforts to conceal or erase sensitive communications.
For a senior official who spent eight years at the center of federal health policy to have stored only three numbers defies common sense and fuels suspicions that data may have been scrubbed or that Fauci intentionally avoided saving contacts that could later implicate him. Against the backdrop of his refusal to answer congressional questions and the Biden DOJs looming decision on contempt charges, the revelations from his phone only reinforce conservatives belief that a full, unflinching investigation into Faucis conduct is not just warranted but long overdue.
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