On July 29, 2026, the American people watched Dr. Anthony Fauci sit before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Sen. Rand Paul, and refuse to answer more than 100 questions.
He invoked the Fifth Amendment repeatedly, claiming Sen. Paul’s “unhinged obsession” and public calls for accountability left him no choice. That performance was not the act of a public servant who had nothing to hide.
It was the calculated silence of a man whose private diary entries, public statements and policy influence during the COVID-19 pandemic demand thorough investigation, arrest where warranted and prosecution.
Sen. Paul released more than 1,100 pages of Fauci’s pandemic-era diary in the days leading up to the hearing. Those entries reveal a stark contrast between what Fauci wrote privately and what he told the American people.
In late January 2020, he noted that the Wuhan wet market “was not the source, it was the amplifier.” On a Feb. 1 conference call with leading scientists, his own notes recorded that most participants believed deliberate insertion of genetic material was possible.
Publicly, the narrative pushed natural origin with little room for the lab-leak hypothesis. Americans were told one story while the man at the center of federal infectious-disease policy recorded another.
The hearing itself produced no substantive answers. Fauci declined to address questions on National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding related to research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, gain-of-function work, the scientific basis for lockdowns and school closures, mortality assessments and prior congressional testimony.
Sen. Paul warned that obstruction of a congressional investigation carries consequences and scheduled a vote on contempt. A presidential pardon issued in the final days of the prior administration does not erase the need for a full accounting, nor does it immunize against new findings or perjury related to earlier sworn statements.
As a commander who spent more than three decades in uniform, including time in the Pentagon on Sept. 11 and leading combat operations, I understand the difference between honest error under pressure and the systematic mismanagement of truth.
Public health leadership during a genuine crisis requires candor. When private records show awareness of lab-related possibilities while public messaging closed off debate, when policy recommendations contributed to widespread economic shutdowns, educational losses and eroded trust in institutions, and when the same official then refuses to answer under oath, the public has every right to demand more than silence.
The costs were real. More than a million Americans died. Children lost years of schooling. Small businesses closed. Military readiness suffered under vaccine mandates that sidelined trained personnel. Public confidence in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, NIH and broader health agencies plummeted.
Fauci’s influence as the most visible federal voice on the response amplified every decision. Accountability is not vengeance; it is the baseline requirement for a free society that funds science and expects honest stewardship of that authority.
Prosecutors should examine the full record: the diary, emails, funding decisions and prior testimony for evidence of false statements to Congress, obstruction or other violations of federal law. Contempt of Congress is a serious matter.
If evidence supports criminal charges, whether related to misleading Congress on research funding, origins or the scope of federal guidance, then the Department of Justice has a duty to act without fear or favor. No official, however decorated or long-serving, stands above the law. The Fifth Amendment protects against compelled self-incrimination; it does not erase the underlying facts or prevent investigation based on independent evidence.
Sen. Paul’s committee has done the hard work of bringing the diary into the light and forcing the appearance. The next steps belong to the Justice Department and, if necessary, the courts.
Holding Fauci to account would not rewrite history or undo the losses of 2020–2022. It would demonstrate that power exercised in the name of public health remains subject to the same constitutional standards that apply to every other citizen. Without that standard, trust cannot be rebuilt, and the next crisis will meet even greater skepticism.
The American people funded the research, lived under the guidance and paid the price. They deserve answers, not another round of procedural stonewalling. Justice delayed is not justice at all.
Rob Maness is a contributor to the Daily Caller News Foundation, a decorated combat veteran, and dynamic leader with over 40 years of experience steering complex organizations through high-stakes challenges. During his military service, Maness received eighteen major awards and decorations, including the Legion of Merit twice and a Bronze Star for combat leadership. Through Iron Liberty Group (2013-present), Maness consults, hosts “The Rob Maness Show” on the WorldViewTube Network, and drives digital initiatives, showcasing entrepreneurial adaptability. His leadership — forged in combat, proven in turnarounds and fueled by a knack for inspiring teams — marks him as a force for action and impact in any arena and is showcased in his book: “What You Can Do About It — Taking Real Action Against Corruption, Radicalism, and Moral Decay to Save America.”
In a recent report, the Common Sense Institute of Arizona (CSI) addressed the gradual slowing of enrollment in Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program and traditional public school classrooms. The report shows that despite narratives for one or the other, the decline in both can be explained quite directly as a matter of demographics and parental choice.
In a press release issued Monday, CSI explained, “Headlines about declining enrollment and the subsequent financial struggles this creates in Arizona’s public schools have caught the state’s attention. However, CSI’s data shows this shift was inevitable, driven by dramatic demographic changes and a shift in enrollment preferences during the pandemic.”
Among CSI’s findings, it found that the school-age population of Arizona peaked in 2021 and is projected to decrease by 40,000 by 2028, heavily impacting an educational system which was structurally predicated on the assumption of a continually growing population.
CSI added, “The 2012 kindergarten cohort—the state’s largest ever—is now preparing to graduate. Future K-12 enrollment is not expected to grow in the foreseeable future.”
Arizona’s Public School Enrollment Decline: No Surprise
CSI research shows Arizona’s K-12 demographic shift has been years in the making: 📉 School-aged population peaked in 2021 🎓 The largest kindergarten class (2012) is now preparing to graduate 👶 By 2028, the school-aged… pic.twitter.com/u5rbGnVLFp
— Common Sense Institute Arizona (@CSInstituteAZ) January 28, 2025
CSI observed further that during the COVID-19 lockdowns, Arizona’s public schools lost 50,000 enrolled students from 2020-2021. Only 18,000 of those students re-enrolled in charter schools with the remaining approximate 32,000 otherwise unaccounted for. It is likely that this number presents a combination of expanded home schooling, relocation out of Arizona, and even enrollment in private schools. Indeed, the report indicates that private school enrollment spiked by 33% over that period with homeschooling experiencing a surge from 2% of the total student population to 11%, and settling back to 6% as of today.
Glenn Farley, CSI Arizona’s Director of Policy and Research summarized, “Arizona’s classrooms are entering a new era. The numbers have been clear for years: the system built for growth has reached its peak. Moving forward, policymakers must adapt to a smaller, more diverse student population and rethink how we allocate resources.”
Arizona’s Public School Enrollment Decline is No Surprise According to the Common Sense Institute Arizona–
— Common Sense Institute Arizona (@CSInstituteAZ) January 28, 2025
The CSI report noted the effect on budgetary considerations has been extreme. “Declining public school enrollments since 2020 reduced public K-12 funding formula costs by an estimated $450 million/year, and growing, compared to pre-pandemic trends. Since last year, the universal ESA program has returned these ‘missing kids’ to the public K-12 rolls – reinvesting prior ‘savings’ into education.”
The ESA, a subject of controversy in the state legislature, has reached a “steady state” according to CSI, with the recent period of rapid growth unlikely to be repeated and future increases owing almost exclusively to parental and student choice.
CSI concluded, “Demographic changes likely mean fewer school-aged children and lower overall enrollment across Arizona’s publicly funded K-12 options over the next ten years. And ultimately it is this demographic change, and pandemic-era changes in parental behavior that are changing K-12 in Arizona – and not-so-much universal ESA itself.”
As previously reported by AZ Free News, Governor Katie Hobbs’ repeated attacks on ESAs have centered primarily on the narrative of the program alternately being “rife with waste, fraud and abuse,” being costly to the state budget, and calling for a repeal of the popular program.
Everyone knows that political pundits, social media influencers, and the corporate media love a good narrative. And one of their favorites for years has been the claim that Arizona is trending blue—that a demographic shift toward Democrats is inevitable.
This ‘conventional wisdom’ is repeated so often that much of the Republican political class in the state has accepted it as fact. Some are even advising candidates that the only path forward for Republicans is to abandon their conservative principles, embrace center-left policy solutions, and settle for a future of divided government.
But a funny thing about narratives and conventional wisdom: numbers don’t lie, especially those showing party preference when people are registering to vote.
Last month, the Secretary of State updated the statewide voter registration data prior to the Presidential Preference Election. The latest figures show that Republicans are once again the largest voting bloc in Arizona, surpassing Independents by nearly 40,000. This is certainly an important development—especially given all the attention it received on social media when Independent registrations surpassed Republicans last year.
But that’s not the most significant voter registration trend…
It’s time for COVID mandates to go away forever. And last month, one Arizona town took a step in this direction when it passed a resolution that needs to be a trend in every city throughout our state.
With a desire to take proactive measures to protect citizens’ constitutional rights, the Queen Creek Town Council passed Resolution No. 1540-23 with a unanimous vote during its regular meeting in September. And it’s quite clear. While the town recommends that people exercise personal responsibility to prevent illness, it committed to not implementing mandates concerning masks, vaccines, business closures, curfews, or “any similar measure.”
COVID mania just won’t go away. The deadly strains of the virus have been gone for two years now, and yet the recent outbreak of a mild flu-like variant is again stoking panic on the Left.
Nearly 100 universities are requiring masks this fall.
Lionsgate movie studios in Los Angeles and Atlanta-based Morris Brown College this week stated they are reinstating not just mask mandates but social distancing measures and contact tracing.
CNN, which led the panic in 2020 and 2021 — causing manic school, restaurant and business shutdowns and vaccine mandates — recently put out a headline on its website that encouraged its readers not to go outside without a mask on. Really? The latest evidence finds this is less dangerous than a normal flu virus and tracking data suggest that the wave has already peaked.
What’s even more disturbing here is that the leftist medical community and the media aren’t renouncing their calls for mitigation strategies that were catastrophically wrong in the panic era of 2020 and 2021 — but instead calling for more of these assaults on freedom in the future.
It is one thing for well-meaning medical experts to have disagreed about how to best combat a once-in-a-half-century deadly virus. We didn’t know exactly what we were dealing with. But now we know with concrete scientific evidence that most mandates and lockdowns had a small impact on the spread of the virus and on fatalities. It turns out there was almost no difference in death rates in states with strict lockdowns and no lockdowns at all. The same is true of cross-country evidence.
Healthy children were never at risk from COVID (something we knew early on), so shutting down schools for one or two years was a sop to the teachers unions but a disaster for this generation of kids. Test scores are the worst in 30 years.
Before the pandemic, only 15% of public school students were chronically absent — more than 18 or more days a year.
Stanford University education professor Thomas Dee’s data shows an estimated 6.5 million additional students are now chronically absent. In Connecticut and Massachusetts, chronic absenteeism remains double its pre-pandemic rate.
But polls show that Democrats — even those that are highly educated — generally still support the lockdowns that were mandated. These are the same people who lecture about “following the science.” The most comprehensive study by experts at Johns Hopkins University found death rates from lockdowns were reduced by 0.1 percent. But how many people died from the isolation of lockdowns, delayed health screening from cancer, the increase in drug overdoses?
Biden’s vaccine mandates only made Americans more resistant to get pricked. They backfired.
Worst of all, Anthony Fauci, who remains a hero of the Left, recently not only refused to admit the errors of his advice but said the “lockdown was absolutely justified.”
Why does this bizarre rewrite of recent history matter? Because the fearmongering Left can’t wait to install new lockdowns every time we have a new flu virus and health scare. They’ve even started putting out feelers for occasional climate change economic shutdowns.
Those who love freedom must strenuously resist this coming tyranny.
