President Joe Biden pardoned former White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci for all crimes that he may have committed as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The pardon could protect Fauci from the congressional GOP. But it could also make make it easier for Republican investigators to question him in connection with probes 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 granted at the last minute to individuals who may come under 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 acknowledgement that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,” said Biden 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 advisor to both 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 and for funding potentially 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 the coronavirus 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 coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Biden said in that Fauci has 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,” said Biden.
Sen. Rand Paul, who engaged in an infamous shouting-match with Fauci in 2021 over the scientific definition of gain-of-function research, told conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck in December that a preemptive pardon for Fauci would “seal his fate as the architect, author, and Godfather of the pandemic.”
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 with the surfacing of an email that confirmed gain-of-function experiments were taking place in Wuhan at the start of the COVID outbreak in China.
Fauci’s legal counsel has not previously responded to requests for comment on Paul’s accusations against the infectious disease doctor.
Legal experts have highlighted that a presidential pardon means that the one legally absolved no longer has the right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment, meaning that Fauci would not be legally able to refuse to answer questions during an official investigation.
The Fifth Amendment issue came to light most recently with Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, that clears 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 in advance of the pardon he hoped it would mean that Fauci would be required to testify before Congress multiple times.
“It is not full accountability, but it’s informational accountability, and it will destroy reputations that need to be destroyed,” said Ebright.
Democrat 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 President Gerald Ford pardoned his predecessor, Richard Nixon, for his involvement in the Watergate scandal.