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Comment by frodo8sam | Hacker News Reader

Depends on your perspective. Many people would consider someone like Fauci non-partisan and more of a competent career expert, but Trumps people think he is very political and purge people like that. At the FBI they purge people who are probably quite competent and not particularly partisan but happened to work on Trumps case, which is mostly about sending a message I think not do much about finding the right employees to work at the FBI. This is very un American in my view.

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>Fauci non-partisan and more of a competent career expert

Then why did Fauci lie to Congress and got the Biden's pre-emptive pardon?

I think this is the person's point. Many people in the past would see Fauci as a prime example of someone who is just a non-partisan career government servant, while others, which it seems you and many people in the current administration, see people like him as overtly partisan and borderline evil.

NB: I really disliked the preemptively pardoning. Like really really disliked it and wish it were not legal.

> NB: I really disliked the preemptively pardoning. Like really really disliked it and wish it were not legal.

I also really hate it, but it's becoming more obvious with time that they to some degree were necessary in this case. Ideally they wouldn't be needed or possible, but Trump and his administration seem to have multiple axes to grind with anyone in the government not directly subserviant to him.

Not necessary, just out of fear. They capitulated to Trump's threats instead of standing up and fighting hard for principles.

Sure, but Fauci should also not have to spend the twilight years of his very accomplished life defending himself from petulant fascists' revenge prosecutions.

Yes, emotionally I'd agree. However, legally, I think it's a very slippery slope. What if Don Jr shoots someone dead and then Trunp premptively pardons him so no one can investigate the shooting?

I think the hard part of enforcing the law is enforcing it equally, even towards those we love the most.

I think enforcing the law is only important while there is rule of law. What the Republicans are doing now is rule by law. It's not a good-faith reading of laws, it's using raw state power to turn the legal apparatus against the perceived enemies of the state/regime.

We're way past lofty ideals like equal application of the law. It's going to take a reconsideration of our social contract in order to live in a society where we once again protect the innocent and punish the guilty.

Or we just get beyond the idea of punishing the guilty and go to restorative justice.

But I want bad things to happen to bad people...

I agree with restorative justice, but the people using a law as a weapon do not so I hope they see the same mercy they show their victims.

What's missing in the first part is that these people believe bad things have already happened to them that's why they do bad things to others

I'm fully aware of my bad thinking, believe me. But so far I haven't been able to overcome it.

He didn't lie to Congress, and he got a preemptive pardon because Trump is vindictive and would 100% have ordered the DOJ to go after Fauci in any way possible.

https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/114270/documents/...

"Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is part of the NIH, told Congress in May that the NIH "has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.""

which we know is a blatant lie - see NIH EcoHealth Alliance Wuhan grants (which even had the "Human Subjects Included" checkbox checked. As a bonus read on how they made there the coronavirus which was successfully infecting and killing mice engineered to have human cells).

Fauci's statement was correct: the NIH does not fund gain-of-function research, according to the definition that has been drawn up to regulate such research.

You seem to think that any manipulation of a virus is "gain-of-function." The technical term that regulators use of "gain of function of concern." There's a specific definition of that term that was drawn up in the 2010s, and that's what NIH applies.

yes, that old "i didn't have s-x with that woman". Nobody cares for that specific definition. CRISP-ering human receptor binding protein onto a non-human coronavirus in such a way that the resulting virus starts to infect and kill human cells is a "gain of function", plain and simple. And thus Fauci lied. It was his professional duty to add to his answer that the gain of function they funded in Wuhan that the Congress was asking him about isn't fitting whatever narrow technical definition NIH uses. So, even if to take your position, it would mean that Fauci lied by omission.

And btw https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK285579/

" “gain of function research of concern,” includes the generation of viruses with properties that do not exist in nature."

So, even NIH defintion does cover Wuhan. So, Fauci lied. Blatantly. Even by NIH defintion.

And this

https://www.phe.gov/s3/dualuse/documents/gain-of-function.pd...

"Gain-of-function studies, or research that improves the ability of a pathogen to cause disease,"

The last link is exactly that 2014 document based on which the gain of function research was moved from US to in particular Wuhan. And Fauci was instrumental in that move.

Edit: to the commenters below who cares so much about the definition that Fauci uses - please do tell what is that magical definition which doesn't match even the NIH documents (see the links above).

That definition exists because nearly all virology involves modification of viruses. You have to have a definition of what type of research is concerning, or else it's just up to whatever some showboating congressman and his ignorant followers think. There was an entire, highly public, year-long process in the 2010s to define what "gain of function" should mean for the purpose of US-government-funded research. That's the definition Fauci uses.

> It was his professional duty to add to his answer that the gain of function they funded in Wuhan that the Congress was asking him about isn't fitting whatever narrow technical definition NIH uses.

No, it isn't. You would think a Senator in charge of regulating the NIH would ask one of his aides to explain to him before the session what "gain of function" means.

Definition matters and meaning of words matters.

> yes, that old "i didn't have s-x with that woman".

Since you are alluding to Clinton impeachment, I would say people who voted for Trump or defend him lost any benefit of doubt they ever cared about respectability, morality or ethics of that situation. Or lying for that matter.

Why did the select subcommittee not report that Fauci lied if in fact he did?

Why did Fauci raise the possibility of a lab leak on Feb 1, 2020, if he was trying to cover that possibility up?

Time and time again we see conspiratorial claims with nothing to back them up.

>Why did the select subcommittee not report that Fauci lied if in fact he did?

it is actually in the report of the subcommittee:

"Members questioned Dr. Fauci about his facilitation and promotion of a singular COVID-19 narrative, his clearly misleading statements before Congress and the public, ..."

and Biden pre-empively pardoned Fauci. So, what else do you need?

>Why did Fauci raise the possibility of a lab leak on Feb 1, 2020

He didn't. He was told in that meeting that it may be a lab leak, and he suppressed it then and after.

>Time and time again we see conspiratorial claims with nothing to back them up.

Interesting, the people arguing against me, like you for example, haven't provided any links/documents so far, where is i provided references and links to the government docs, reports, grants backing up my statements.

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