Fauci called Kansas senator a moron. But Marshall’s COVID games are worse than dumb
Did Tony Fauci know his microphone was still live at a Senate Health Committee meeting Tuesday afternoon? The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases reacted with exasperation to a series of confused but combative questions from Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall. “What a moron,” Fauci muttered. “Jesus Christ.”
This was after a not quite comprehensible harangue from Kansas’ junior senator, who vies with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul to see who can kick the most dust in Fauci’s eyes. They are both intent on turning Fauci into the face of the COVID-19 lockdowns that are not a thing anymore and the mandates that are barely enforced.
Marshall was no Katie Porter, briskly demanding specifics, but a man who seemed not to know what he wanted to know. Would Fauci be willing to submit a financial disclosure to Congress and the public, he demanded?
Fauci wearily answered that his compensation has been public information for every one of his 37 years in government. Which is true: As the oversized paycheck Marshall brought with him as a prop noted, Fauci was paid $434,000 in 2020, while Donald Trump was still president.
Fauci’s financial records are readily available to any member of the public who files a Freedom of Information Act request.
“Tech giants are doing an incredible job of keeping it from being public,” Marshall said, making no sense. “We’ll continue to look for it. Where would we find it?”
“All you have to do is ask for it,” Fauci answered. “You’re so misinformed, it’s extraordinary.”
Unfortunately, Marshall isn’t misinformed, but knows full well that Fauci’s salary and holdings are public record, just as those of members of Congress are.
“Wouldn’t you agree with me that you see things before members of Congress would see them?” Marshall asked him. “So there’s an air of appearance that maybe some shenanigans are going on? You know, I don’t think, assume that’s the case.”
And on and ever more vaguely on.
We can disagree about whether the doctor who has guided public health policy since the Reagan administration is an overpaid public servant. After all, how many football games has he ever won?
Back in Kansas, Jayhawks hoops coach Bill Self pulls down more than 10 times that amount. New KU Athletic Director Travis Goff will make do on just $700,000 a year, though his predecessor worked his way up to $1.5 million. (And yes, we know the bulk of their compensation comes from the university’s Kansas Athletics, Inc., which is not technically a state agency. Still, Fauci clearly should have studied PE.)
Marshall’s attack on the director’s salary is part of a broader campaign pushing the idea that Fauci is goosing the U.S. coronavirus response to make bank. What began as a false allegation that he nefariously misdirected National Institutes of Health money to a lab in China has now morphed into hazy charges that Fauci’s “investments” have enriched him personally.
In the post-truth internet information age, “Fauci = pandemic profiteer” is an easy narrative to peddle. But as Fauci noted Tuesday, his congressional critics are overtly fundraising on the back of COVID-19.
Small-dollar individual campaign contributions are an ever-increasing part of politicians’ fundraising efforts today. With his #FireFauci webpage soliciting those $5 and $20 donations, Paul is “making a catastrophic epidemic for your political gain,” Fauci charged.
Marshall and other politicians firing up their noise machines are trying much harder to make voters angry about modest and necessary efforts to fight the pandemic than they are to convince them to end it.
But every Kansan who refuses a vaccine or forgoes a mask in a crowded public space just increases the number of people getting sick and dying.
Roger Marshall is a medical doctor. He presumably does know the basics of how infectious diseases work.
True, he did not seem to know what he was asking Fauci.
But he knows exactly what he’s doing.
This story was originally published January 12, 2022 at 5:00 AM.