Just the News has an online poll asking readers if they “think Fauci will be prosecuted for his handling of the pandemic.” Almost 80% say no, fewer than a fifth say yes. Only 3% are unsure. We hope that overwhelming majority is wrong. Anthony Fauci, a man with an impressive title that demands a respect he doesn’t deserve, should be put in the dock. His response to the coronavirus pandemic was criminal.

T​​he former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was back in front of Congress Monday, testifying before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. It was naturally a contentious affair.

But it was a two-day closed-door testimony in January before the same subcommittee combined with this week’s appearance that we find intriguing.

It was during the earlier hearing that Fauci, an incessant and tedious nag, admitted the social distancing spread of 6 feet “sort of just appeared.”

Asked if he had seen “any studies that supported 6 feet” he said he was “not aware of” any and admitted “that would be a very difficult study to do.”

Fauci tried to save himself during Monday’s testimony.

“My saying there was no science behind it, means there was no clinical trial that proved that,” he said.

So it was a guess? Or it just appeared? Which is it?

Fauci was also asked in January if he recalled “reviewing any studies or data supporting masking for children.”

“You know, I might have,” he said, “but I don’t recall specifically that I did. I might have.”

He again on Monday tried to save himself.

“There was no study that did masks on kids before,” he conceded.

When asked if there had ever been a cost-benefit analysis completed to measure “the unintended consequences of masking kids versus the protection that it would give them,” he replied “Not to my knowledge.”

Might have? Is “might have” the basis for governments all across the country handing down mandates that didn’t work? Is “sort of just appeared” good enough science to aggressively advance a policy that spread fear and even led to brawling in public? “Not to my knowledge”? This from the man who portrayed himself as all-knowing?

So what else did Fauci and the public health deep state manufacture? Oh, yes. He and his cronies apparently did all they could to cover up the proximal origins of the virus.

Donald Trump should have fired Fauci before even he began to talk about flattening the curve of COVID-19 cases. Fauci was more bureaucrat than scientist; more celebrity and self-promoter than physician; and despite his diminutive stature, more bully than healer.

His biggest talent might have been his ability to accrue great wealth while working as a federal functionary. According to Newsweek, referring to records obtained by Open The Books, a government transparency watchdog, Fauci and “his wife saw their net worth go up $5 million from before the start of the health crisis through 2021.“

We’re not accusing him of graft – nor are we saying every dime he owns was honestly acquired – but we nevertheless want to see him prosecuted, and if during any investigation it turns out that he unethically profited from his position as a public “servant,” then he should be hit with the appropriate charges. It won’t be easy to sort out who got what, but we do know, thanks to Open The Books, that pharmaceutical companies paid $690 million to Fauci’s National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases “through secret third-party royalties” during the pandemic years.

That aside, Fauci needs to be held accountable for plunging a nation into a panic. For a rotten, smug, condescending bedside manner. For inflicting his god complex on the country and directing political theater that had no medical value. For his arrogance in claiming that he is science. For being the main cog in the political wood chipper in which, in the words of GOP Rep. Brad Wenstrup of Ohio, “Americans were aggressively bullied, shamed and silenced for merely questioning or debating issues such as social distancing, masks, vaccines, or the origins of COVID.”

He also lied to Congress, which is a federal crime. He tried to discredit the lab-leak theory, which pleased Peter Daszak, head of EcoHealth Alliance, a non-governmental organization that funneled $600,000 in taxpayers’ money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the likely source of the virus, according to a number of federal agencies.

Furthermore, Fauci was part of the “quick and devastating published take down” of the Great Barrington Declaration. While not illegal, it was a hit job on a group of doctors and scientists who offered a reasonable way to fight the virus without crushing life and liberty – the full opposite of the Faucist movement.

“For his dishonesty, frankly, he should go to prison,” Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said Sunday during a radio interview. “If you lie to Congress, and you’re dishonest, and you won’t accept responsibility. For his mistake in judgment, he should just be pilloried. He should never be accepted.”

Depending on what the evidence can prove, prison might be a bit too harsh. But then again, Fauci led and aided a cabal of government officials who sentenced nearly an entire country to house arrest, and robbed people of their livelihoods, businesses, health and well-being. People have done hard time for less.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board