Standing Up to Bullies

In the face of GOP attacks, public servants like Anthony Fauci and Alvin Bragg need courage just to do their jobs

“I’m still getting death threats,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said this week. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“He is not a comic book super villain,” Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin said Monday at the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. He was referring to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who dedicated more than five decades of his life to managing public health crises, including the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the West Nile virus outbreak, Ebola, Zika and SARS. That all proceeded his impossible role as the public face of the government’s response to COVID-19 under the sociopathic Donald Trump (one of seven U.S. presidents he advised).

Now a private citizen, the 83-year-old public health legend—who helped save tens of millions of lives globally in his AIDS relief work alone—voluntarily agreed to appear before the committee. This despite the predictable idiocy that drove much of the questioning by Republicans determined to prove that he is evil incarnate—that he was involved in a malevolent plot to cover up the origins of the coronavirus, that he lied about the appropriate response to the pandemic in order to line his own pockets.

The questioning included evidence-free claims that he was secretly working behind-the-scenes to silence the theory that the virus was leaked from a Chinese laboratory and that he tried to influence the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies. While he has said that he believes the most probable explanation is that the virus jumped from animals to humans, he offered the type of rational response one expects from a trusted scientist. “I have repeatedly stated that I have a completely open mind to either possibility and that if definitive evidence becomes available to validate or refute either theory, I will ready accept it,” Fauci said.

Such rationality didn’t calm the worst among them, of course. Georgia’s own Marjorie Taylor Greene could be heard ranting into the microphone that “you belong in prison,” insisting he shouldn’t be called a doctor, condemning him for engaging in “repulsive evil science” and calling for him to be prosecuted for “crimes against humanity.” She also said he is “a monster.”

It was the kind of angry nonsense we’ve come to expect from her and other Republicans who’ve spent years gaslighting Americans. They have spread lies to distract from Trump’s role in convincing so many Americans to minimize COVID-19’s danger, pursue crackpot solutions and reject the vaccine. In other words, an unforgivable and deadly failure that cost hundreds of thousands of Americans to lose their lives.

Oh, how hard they tried to demean Fauci, the man who millions of Americans trust and admire. Surely, this public servant’s real purpose was to get rich off the pandemic, right?

“How much have you earned in royalties from pharmaceutical companies since the pandemic began in 2021?” asked New York Rep. Nicole Malliotakis.

“Zero,” answered Fauci.

After further pressing—surely, he got his share of the millions—the good doctor clarified his record. “I want to make sure that this is clear: that I developed a monoclonal antibody about 25 years ago that’s used as a diagnostic that has nothing to do with Covid, and I receive about $120 a year from that patent.”

This is one public servant who has refused to stand by and let his reputation be ruined and the truth be denied for purely partisan purposes.

But here’s the thing: The increasingly hostile and unhinged response from GOP elected officials is exacerbating the angry climate of violence. We have every reason to expect they will keep ratcheting up their attacks to defend the convicted felon and condemn Democrats for political persecution and government weaponization. That puts pressure on decent public servants like Anthony Fauci and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to act courageously just to do their jobs.

On Tuesday, we learned that House Speaker Mike Johnson is readying a “three pronged approach” to go after the Justice Department, New York and other entities that are involved in investigating Trump. He asserted the House will cut funds intended for government appropriations among other efforts to weaponize the response to 12 New York jurors convicting the felonious Trump last week.

“We’re going to do everything we can, everything within our scope of our responsibility in the Congress, to address it appropriately,” Johnson said at a news conference in that insidiously polite tone of his.

In contrast, there was none of that tone from the convicted Trump operative Steve Bannon this week. He told Axios that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg must be prosecuted and more: “Of course [Bragg] should be—and will be—jailed,” Bannon asserted, saying out loud what many Trump enablers despicably want.

As for Trump himself, he told Newsmax this week that he’s being pushed into taking revenge against his enemies that have prosecuted him. “It’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to, and it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them,” the remorseless felon said about the conviction, five weeks before his July 11 sentencing. “Does that mean the next president does it to them? That’s really the question.”

In his mob-boss style, you can read the coded way Trump threatens—with just as much deniability if and when others act on his violent incitements. Tragically, his enablers and cultists hear it, with serious consequences for our collective future, whether or not they take power in November.

Let’s return to the Fauci hearing. Toward the end, Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell asked the doctor to describe the threats he and his family have faced—this being the shameful price of public service since Trump became president and empowered the worst among us to harass those trying to do good. As he spoke, Fauci choked up, struggling to hold back tears.

“Everything from harassments from emails, texts, letters to myself, my wife, my three daughters,” he said. “There have been credible death threats leading to the arrest of two individuals—and credible death threats means someone who clearly was on their way to kill me. And it’s required my having protective services essentially all the time.”

Such threats, he added, serve as a “powerful disincentive for young people to want to go into public health and maybe even science and medicine in the public arena,” he added. “They say to themselves, ‘I don’t want to go there. Why should I get involved in that?’”

Monday night, Fauci described to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins how these threats play out. “It’s a pattern,” he told her. When someone in the media or in Congress “gets up and makes a public statement that I’m responsible for the deaths of x-number of people because of policies or some crazy idea that I created the virus—immediately you can, it’s like clockwork—the death threats go way up.”

Then he was more specific about his continuing reality, despite his retirement. “I’m still getting death threats,” he said. “When you have performances like that unusual performance by Marjorie Taylor Greene in today’s hearing, those are the kinds of things that drive up the death threats because there are a segment of the population out there that believe that kind of nonsense.”

It will get worse before it gets better. That’s a reliable prediction. This hostile environment is certain to cause more anger and vile behavior as the election nears and Trump’s fear of losing mounts.

But don’t be discouraged. Let this animosity nourish your desire to work for a massive GOP defeat in November, up and down the ballot. An overwhelming Democratic victory doesn’t mean that this fascistic mindset will fade away—a big loss will likely unleash even more madness first. But this is the only path to reasserting American values, regaining the primacy of democracy and ending the belief that fear and violence is a winning strategy.

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