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How long can Anthony Fauci stay silent · DEEP INSIGHT

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: It is illegal to obstruct the work of the United
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: States Congress. So when Anthony Fauci repeatedly says this to
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: a group of senators, I.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the
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  Speaker 2: Constitution to refrain from answering your questions, and.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Says that one hundred and eleven times over the course
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: of several hours, refusing to answer every question he was
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  Speaker 1: asked last week. Well, nothing says honesty like taking the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: fifth Huh, Doc, Let's try something. What day the week
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: is it today? What color tie you're wearing?
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: What color is a carpet in front of you on.
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  Speaker 2: The Advisive Council? I respectfully decline to answer, based upon
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Super awkward, but is it illegal?
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  Speaker 3: There will be repercussions to your refusal to testify today.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: This is about contempt, contempt for this body, and contempt
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: for the American people. Some breaking news this morning, the
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has voted to
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: hold doctor Anthony Fauci in content of Congress. Republicans under
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump have declared fresh war on the man who
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  Speaker 1: basically overnight was suddenly the most influential and prominent public
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  Speaker 1: health voice during the pandemic. Now he won't tell them
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  Speaker 1: a thing. How long can he keep that up?
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  Speaker 4: Who the fuck do you think you were for doing that?
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Many Republicans and their supporters do not like Anthony Fauci,
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  Speaker 1: but few have so consistently made an enemy of him
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  Speaker 1: over such a long period of time as Rand Paul.
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  Speaker 3: Instead of an apology, you have for years avoided responsibility.
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  Speaker 3: You did not tell the American people the full story.
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  Speaker 1: Rand Paul is the Republican chair of a Senate Homeland
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  Speaker 1: Security committee that subpoenaed Anthony Fauci to testify just last
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  Speaker 1: week over I would say two main questions that even
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  Speaker 1: all these years after the pandemic, he still feels our unanswered.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: One did Fauci try to push this idea that COVID
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: couldn't have come from a Chinese lab even when he
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  Speaker 1: thought maybe it did? And two? Did Fauci lie about
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  Speaker 1: whether the US gave money to create this virus that
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: would ultimately kill more than a million Americans. Fauci denies
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: these claims, and here was one of the only things
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  Speaker 1: he said at just hearing last week.
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  Speaker 2: The sole reason he is calling me before this committee
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: is to get me to say something, anything that could
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  Speaker 2: vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up in
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  Speaker 2: his words quote behind bars unquote, any reasonable person who
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come
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  Speaker 2: to the same conclusion.
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  Speaker 1: And so it began.
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  Speaker 3: Can you explain to the committee why you chose to
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  Speaker 3: fund this dangerous research in China?
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  Speaker 2: On the Advisive Council, I respectfully declined to answer.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Doctor Fauci.
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  Speaker 3: Did the CIA ever transfer funds to NIH under an
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  Speaker 3: interagency agreement? Doctor Fauci, were the scientists at the Muhan
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: Institute of Virology capable of inserting a few and cleavage
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: side into a coronavirus lab investigators? Did they ever appear
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  Speaker 3: in these labs to make sure they were safe labs?
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  Speaker 2: On the Advisive Council, I respectfully decline, And you get
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: the idea.
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  Speaker 4: The Republicans are accusing doctor Fauci of being in contempt
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  Speaker 4: of Congress because he refused to answer questions and he
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege, And the Republicans are saying,
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  Speaker 4: you can't do that because you've been given a pardon
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  Speaker 4: by President Biden, which covers your culpability, and you are
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  Speaker 4: not allowed to invoke the Fifth.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, narrowly, an American's Fifth Amendment right is to remain
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  Speaker 1: silent to avoid self incrimination, and you can do that
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  Speaker 1: by not answering questions. Except Republicans say, hang on, Joe Biden,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: when he was president, gave you a preemptive pardon.
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  Speaker 3: Breaking news, President Joe Biden announcing pardons in his final
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  Speaker 3: hours before Donald Trump takes office. Biden announcing the pardon
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  Speaker 3: of doctor Anthony Founchief.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: So your immune to prosecution, meaning you can't invoke the
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  Speaker 1: right to remain silent since there's no chance of self incrimination.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Since there's no chance of prosecution.
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  Speaker 3: You don't have any rights under the Fifth Amendment because
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  Speaker 3: you've been pardoned, as you very well know.
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  Speaker 1: So to avoid questioning in this way, this they say
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  Speaker 1: is contempt punishable by a fine of up to one
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  Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars and or up to a year in jail.
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  Speaker 3: We are voting on whether a witness who has received
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  Speaker 3: the benefit of a sweeping federal pardon can be ordered
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  Speaker 3: by this committee to answer questions and then defy that
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  Speaker 3: order without consequence.
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  Speaker 1: So that's why and how Fauci is under legal threat today,
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  Speaker 1: But the bigger question is the bigger threat beyond today.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: If you're someone who sees Anthony Fauci as dangerous as
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  Speaker 1: a villain, the first question you have is a very
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  Speaker 1: serious charge. Why pedal the lie that COVID made a
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: natural jump from animals to humans?
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  Speaker 3: Publicly, Anthony Fauci promoted the theory that the virus arose naturally,
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  Speaker 3: while privately he was well aware of a mountain of
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  Speaker 3: evidence suggesting the virus originated in the lab.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: They point to Fauci's own diary entries written in the
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  Speaker 1: earliest days of the pandemic, like this one from January
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  Speaker 1: twenty sixth to twenty twenty So this is before the
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  Speaker 1: World Health Organization is even willing to call this an
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  Speaker 1: international public health emergency, never mind an actual pandemic, which
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: would come months later. Fauci writes about the wet market
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: origin theory, now we know the market was not the source.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: It was the amplifier, And just five days later he
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  Speaker 1: writes how his colleagues studying the coronavirus itself believe mutations
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  Speaker 1: in its makeup could not have occurred naturally, and they
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  Speaker 1: raised the possibility that these features were deliberately inserted and
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: either accidentally released or deliberately released by a crazy person
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  Speaker 1: in the lab. Republicans like Rand Paul say this is
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  Speaker 1: evidence that Fauci and his colleagues were privately entertaining this
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  Speaker 1: lab leak theory while denying it in public. Fauci says
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  Speaker 1: that's not quite right, but he's often leaned one way,
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  Speaker 1: but never lied.
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  Speaker 5: We keep a completely open mind as to what the
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  Speaker 5: origin is. Having said that if you look at the
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  Speaker 5: examination by highly qualified international rational scientists with no political
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  Speaker 5: agendas they've published in peer review journals, the best of
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  Speaker 5: the peer review journals, that the evidence is quite strong
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  Speaker 5: that this is a natural occurrence.
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  Speaker 1: Fauci has said his objection was always only against people
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  Speaker 1: who said the Lablik theory was unequivocally true when they
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: just had no way of knowing, and that when people
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: accuse him of a cover up, pointing at positions like
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  Speaker 1: this published in May of twenty twenty, they're really just
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: misrepresenting his position as being entirely one sided. In reality,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: though opinion on the true origin of COVID nineteen is split,
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  Speaker 1: early on the prevailing theory was that this was most
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  Speaker 1: likely a case of natural animal to human transmission at
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  Speaker 1: a seafood market in Muhan, China, and for years the
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  Speaker 1: US intelligence community was unsure. From this government report in
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, at least five intelligence agencies believed this
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  Speaker 1: was just a case of the virus from infecting animals
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: to infecting humans, but the Department of Energy and the
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  Speaker 1: FBI leaned towards the lab league theory. The CIA decided inconclusive,
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  Speaker 1: though later on it would lean more towards COVID's origin
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  Speaker 1: being in a lab. The World Health Organization not so sure.
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  Speaker 1: The work to understand the origins of Sarskov two remains unfinished.
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  Speaker 1: The origins of sars KOV two and how it entered
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  Speaker 1: the human population will remain inconclusive. Despite all this, Republicans
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  Speaker 1: insist a Fauci cover up makes sense because American taxpayer
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  Speaker 1: money under Fauci's leadership, funded some of the work going
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  Speaker 1: on in that lab in Wuhan.
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  Speaker 3: The decision to fund dangerous gain of function research in Wuhan,
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  Speaker 3: China will likely go down in history as perhaps one
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  Speaker 3: of the worst public health decisions. I hope today doctor
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  Speaker 3: Fauci will come clean admit that the risk of this
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  Speaker 3: dangerous research exceeded any possible benefits forgiveness.
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  Speaker 1: Now, at the risk of going down all the rabbit holes,
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  Speaker 1: I will answer this. Did fauci's National Institute of Allergy
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  Speaker 1: and Infectious Diseases fund coronavirus research in Wuhan. Yes, it did.
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  Speaker 1: This is not disputed. A US nonprofit called EcoHealth managed
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  Speaker 1: to secure, over a period of about ten years, a
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  Speaker 1: series of seven grants from ANIAID, totaling more than four
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  Speaker 1: million dollars, studying very specifically the question of bats transmitting
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  Speaker 1: coronaviruses to humans in China. A portion of this money,
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  Speaker 1: about six hundred thousand dollars, did go to the Wuhan
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  Speaker 1: Institute of Perology in China. But the harder question to
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  Speaker 1: answer is whether that research funded an explicit attempt to
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  Speaker 1: make one of these coronaviruses better at infecting humans. When
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  Speaker 1: you hear people talking about gain of function research, that's
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  Speaker 1: what they're talking about.
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  Speaker 2: The nih has not ever and does not now, fund
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  Speaker 2: gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute.
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  Speaker 1: FAUCI has long maintained that US funded research in China
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  Speaker 1: did not produce anything genetically close enough to be the
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  Speaker 1: direct cause of the pandemic. But again, the Republican charge
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  Speaker 1: here is immense, which is that if the US government
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  Speaker 1: under Fauci's leadership had not helped China in its research,
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  Speaker 1: the global pandemic might never have happened. To begin with.
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  Speaker 3: You've never admitted that it could have been a mistake
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  Speaker 3: funding this research in China. No scientist is above scrutiny.
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  Speaker 1: So here's the thing. I'm not explaining and reopening this
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  Speaker 1: whole who caused the pandemic debate to try to come
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  Speaker 1: to some sort of conclusion on the matter. I raise
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  Speaker 1: it only to show you how high the stakes are
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  Speaker 1: and how serious some elements of this Trump administration are
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  Speaker 1: about prosecuting Anthony Fauci, pardon or no parton.
• 11:03
  Speaker 6: It's very clear from statements that were made by Republicans
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  Speaker 6: during the hearings and after and outside of those hearings
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  Speaker 6: that they intend to use him as a poster child
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  Speaker 6: for what took place in the United States during the
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  Speaker 6: COVID era.
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  Speaker 1: This possibility that a vengeful Republicans will find some way
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  Speaker 1: anyway to prosecute Fauci despite his pardon.
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  Speaker 2: Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about.
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  Speaker 2: Quite frankly, and I want to say that officially, you
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  Speaker 2: do not know what you are talking about. And if
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  Speaker 2: anybody is lying here, Senator, it is you.
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  Speaker 1: This is what powers Fauci's Fifth Amendment defense, because while
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  Speaker 1: the pardon would appear to protect him from any of
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  Speaker 1: his public actions over a fairly wide ten year period,
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't extend to anything he might say or admit
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  Speaker 1: to now. And sure enough, prosecutors in Trump friendly parts
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: of the country at the state level, from Alabama to Florida,
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  Speaker 1: another red state, and Louisiana to there is an increasing
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  Speaker 1: tide of legal action building against Fauci. So when summoned
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  Speaker 1: before Congress, he shuts down. But for how long he
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  Speaker 1: can continue that strategy depends entirely on how determined this
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  Speaker 1: administration is to make him pay