On April 17 in Dublin, the Royal Academy of Physicians of Ireland awarded Dr. Anthony Fauci their prestigious Sterne Medal for his contributions to public health. In the United States, however, far-right House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Kentucky) believes Fauci is deserving of criminal charges.
During an early June appearance on Fox Business, Comer claimed that Fauci lied to Congress about the six-foot social distancing standard when, during a Monday, June 3 congressional hearing, he testified about the Trump Administration's early response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Comer told Fox Business, "At the end of the day, if you lie to Congress, that's a felony. Everyone knows that Dr. Fauci was the lead instigator in the spacing distance. This is something that not only shut down tens of thousands of businesses in America and ran the debt up as a result of having to subsidize those businesses that were shut down and have to subsidize the unemployment rate — it destroyed public education."
READ MORE: 'I worship God': Greene melts down again after attacking Fauci in profane lie-filled rant
The House Oversight Committee chairman added, "Kids couldn't be in school because of the six-foot social distancing requirements that Dr. Fauci championed."
The contentious June 3 hearing marked the first time that Fauci publicly testified at a congressional hearing since his retirement from the federal government, which the public health expert, now 83, joined in the late 1960s.
During most of his years in government, Fauci was hardly a controversial figure on the right. In fact, he worked closely with several Republican administrations — including those of Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. And the younger President Bush awarded Fauci the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008 for his AIDS-related work.
But during the COVID-19 pandemic, many MAGA Republicans became deeply resentful of Fauci. The native New Yorker testified, on June 3, that he became the target of death threats.
READ MORE:'National embarrassment': Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Fauci attack 'crazy and irresponsible'
Comer also attacked Fauci during an early June appearance on Newsmax TV — a cable news outlet that prides itself on being to the right of Fox News and Fox Business — and said he hopes there will be a criminal investigation of him.
Comer told Newsmax, "Hopefully, we can take his words today and continue to try to gather evidence and take steps to try to hold him in criminal wrongdoing because I believe that the majority of Americans realize that Dr. Fauci made costly mistakes, he's lied about them, and he's tried to cover it up."
READ MORE:Republicans have invented these 5 reasons to 'reject any verdict against Trump': conservative