Maryland Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin went on the offensive against COVID conspiracy theory spewing Republicans during the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing where Dr. Anthony Fauci testified.
Fauci headed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health for 38 years. He retired in December of 2022.
After several Republican committee members tried linking Fauci to baseless or disproven conspiracy theories, Representative Raskin said:
"Well, Dr. Fauci, I want to join my colleague from Florida [Democratic Representative Kathy Castor] in apologizing to you that some of our colleagues in the United States House of Representatives seem to want to drag your name through the mud."
"They're treating you, Dr. Fauci, like a convicted felon."
You can watch the moment here:
In an obvious nod to Trump's recent guilty verdict, the Maryland Democrat added:
"Actually, you probably wish they were treating you like a convicted felon. They treat convicted felons with love and admiration."
"Some of them blindly worship convicted felons."
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Others also had little patience for Republicans' unfounded accusations and the GOP political theater.
Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene's contribution was refusing to admit Dr. Fauci is a doctor.
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And Americans are proving to have long memories about who said and did what and when during the pandemic.
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In his opening remarks as ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Representative Raskin stated:
"According to Doctor Deborah Birx, Donald Trump’s own Covid-19 advisor, America unnecessarily lost hundreds of thousands of people because of the recklessness and indifference of Donald Trump and his administration."
"Now, the people who brought you the political big lie claiming, absurdly, that Trump won the 2020 election which he lost by more than 7 million votes, now bring you the medical big lie—making the outlandish claim that Doctor Fauci was responsible for causing Covid-19."
"Using the select subcommittee as a platform for this disinformation, House Republicans now find themselves in the familiar position where their own investigation debunks their runaway political rhetoric."
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In response to questions by Michigan Democratic Representative Debbie Dingell, Dr. Fauci spoke of how the lies and misinformation promoted by the GOP affected him and his family.
Of Dr. Fauci, Representative Raskin added in his opening statement:
"The investigation of Doctor Fauci shows he is an honorable public servant who has devoted his entire career to the public health, in the public interest, and he is not a comic book supervillain."
He then disputed some of the false claims made by Republican lawmakers about Dr. Fauci.
"He did not fund research to create the Covid 19 pandemic. He did not lie to Congress about gain of function research in Wuhan, and he did not organize a lab leak suppression campaign."
Then Representative Raskin called out the purpose of this and other Republican investigations.
"Today, Doctor Fauci’s testimony—along with the thousands of pages of documents and dozens of closed-door testimony provided to House Republicans as part of the Covid origins investigation—will dispel these hysterical claims and reveal that the people bowing down to a twice impeached, convicted felon who told Americans to inject themselves with bleach now want you to believe not only a big political... lie, but a big medical lie too."
Repeat a lie often enough, and some people will inevitably believe it.
