If you watched the vulgar assault on Anthony Fauci this past Wednesday, you were treated to one of the sorriest moments in this history of U.S. Senate Committee hearings. You saw a dedicated public servant cursed and threatened. You saw the Trump Third Reich on full display, led by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.
Paul has been threatening Fauci, who was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) from 1984 to 2022 and Chief Medical Advisor to the President from 2021 to 2022. He managed the COVID crisis with a professionalism that could only be challenged by conspiracy-theory nutcases. Which, sadly, sums up the members of today’s Republican Party, or more accurate, the MAGAMoneyCult.
Paul believes, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, that the COVID virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. He has accused Fauci of trying to cover up that fact.
Fauci, like other researchers, seriously considered that possibility but could find no evidence of it. outbreak to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), where coronaviruses are studied. Multiple comprehensive reviews published in 2021–2025 conclude that the balance of evidence favors something called “zoonotic spillover,” which translates to a natural emergence.
You would think a doctor, which Sen. Paul is, would be able to read through all the research and understand it. Not, apparently, Dr. Sen. Rand Paul who has said many times he wants to see Fauci in jail.
Which brought us to Wednesday’s sorry spectacle.
Fauci, with his lawyer at his side, told the committee of his respect for the Constitution, the powers of Congress but said given Paul’s crusade to put him in jail, he would plead the Fifth Amendment. When Paul threatened Fauci with “consequences” for exercising his Fifth Amendment rights his lawyer, David Schertler, attempted to speak up and tell Paul there are no consequences for someone to exercise their rights, Paul had him tossed.
“You are not invited here for testimony, sir. You are being disruptive……” Paul told Schertler, apparently not aware that a lawyer should not require an invitation to intervene on a behalf of a client whose rights were about to be challenged.
Let’s be clear why Dr. Fauci exercised those Fifth Amendment rights. If we look at how Donald Trump has turned the Justice Department into his personal tool of vengeance, and costly though frivolous charges filed against people like James Comey, John Brennan and Jack Smith, it makes sense. Dr. Fauci and his lawyers no doubt knew Paul and his committee were on a fishing expedition that would eventually end up with absurd charges being filed against him. Fauci was not worried about truly incriminating himself but giving a lynch mob a rope.
When questioning began it was Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno who took what was a spectacle and turned it into a vulgar barroom cuss out.
“Who the fuck do you think you were?” the Ohio senator asked Fauci, referring to his management of the COVID crisis. “It is a total disgrace what you did to this country.”
When Fauci refused to respond to Moreno, citing the Fifth Amendment, Moreno exploded with more vulgarities.
“Do you feel like you’re in deep shit?” Moreno asked Fauci, referring to a 2023 piece in the conservative Washington Free Beacon in which Schertler was described as a lawyer whom clients only call if “you’re in deep shit.”
So, who is this Moreno guy? Born in Colombia, former owner of car dealerships around Cleveland, he ran against and defeated Sherrod Brown and when J.D. Vance was elected vice-president became Ohio’s senior senator. While at one time he had critical things to say about Trump, Trump endorsed him and he said, “I wear with honor my endorsement from President Trump.”
He is the former father-in-law of Ohio Rep. Max Miller, who allegedly held a gun to his ex-wife’s head and threatened Sen. Moreno according to court filings. Miller was accused of beating his child and he and Emily Moreno, Bernie’s daughter, were divorced. So far no Republicans have demanded Miller’s resignation and he is running for reelection.
Moreno has his own checkered past. In 2023, just before being election to the Senate, Moreno settled over a dozen wage theft lawsuits, agreeing to pay more than $400,000 to two former employees. A state judge rebuked him for shredding documents potentially related to the case. A March 2024 report found Moreno had faced two lawsuits alleging gender and age-based discrimination; Moreno’s campaign responded by saying both employees who sued him supported his Senate campaign.
I am not a prude. I can cuss with the best of them. But what we heard from Moreno was in a Senate hearing. It was shocking. If you go back to 2004 then-Vice-President Dick Cheney, serving as president of the Senate, muttered a soft “fuck you” to Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy after an argument. Searches don’t turn up much else in terms of that sort of language, so I think it’s safe to assume that even the worst of Senators have realized there is a decorum to Senate operations.
This is where we are, folks. We have a party driven by conspiracy theories, Third Reich and Stalinist views of “justice,” and vulgarians sitting in sacred seats. We are in a dark and dangerous place and the unjustified assault on Dr. Fauci proves it.
The elections can’t come soon enough.
Jordan is a pseudonym for a writer who has spent a career writing about politics and being involved in business and politics at several levels. To protect those who have been associated with him he uses the pseudonym.