Former CIA Director John Brennan hailed Dr. Anthony Fauci as a “national hero” over the weekend, praising the federal health official for his “innate goodness” after Twitter CEO Elon Musk expressed his desire to see the retiring National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) chief prosecuted.
“Dr. Fauci is a national hero who will be remembered for generations to come for his innate goodness & many contributions to public health,” Brennan said before turning his attention to Musk, who over the weekend tweeted this his pronouns are “Prosecute/Fauci.”
“Despite your business success, you will be remembered most for fueling public hate & divisions. You may have money, but you have no class,” Brennan added:
Dr. Fauci is a national hero who will be remembered for generations to come for his innate goodness & many contributions to public health
Despite your business success, you will be remembered most for fueling public hate & divisions.
You may have money, but you have no class. https://t.co/0zabyXMERz
— John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) December 11, 2022
Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) also praised the outgoing White House medical adviser, bizarrely asserting that Fauci “likely saved more human lives than any living person in the world”:
It’s America. You can select any pronouns you damn well please. But Anthony Fauci has likely saved more human lives than any living person in the world. Shame on you. pic.twitter.com/NbQks9Tohn
— Rep. Dean Phillips 🇺🇸 (@RepDeanPhillips) December 11, 2022
Musk later backed up his position, explaining that Fauci “lied to Congress and funded gain-of-function research that killed millions of people.”
The Fauci praise follows the release of the deposition as part of Louisiana and Missouri’s lawsuit against the Biden administration and public officials over the allegations of colluding with social media companies to censor speech related to the Chinese coronavirus. Fauci claimed 174 times throughout the interview not to have recalled and claimed that it was not in his area of expertise to say if people should be “allowed” to voice opinions on social media that he believes could cause public harm.
During that same deposition, Fauci revealed that one of his deputies joined a World Health Organization (W.H.O.) delegation at the start of the pandemic and came back “impressed” by the way the authoritarian regime was handling the outbreak.
Fauci also feigned ignorance throughout the interview, attempting to cast himself as “so dissociated from social media,” only to later admit that he has engaged in talks with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He also admitted that his daughter worked for Twitter.
Republicans plan to investigate Fauci with their forthcoming majority status in the U.S. House. In August, prior to the election, GOP leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) vowed that a GOP House majority would hold Fauci accountable:
Dr. Fauci lost the trust of the American people when his guidance unnecessarily kept schools closed and businesses shut while obscuring questions about his knowledge on the origins of COVID.
He owes the American people answers. A @HouseGOP majority will hold him accountable.— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) August 22, 2022
