Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene verbally berated Anthony Fauci, saying he deserved to be prosecuted and repeatedly refusing to acknowledge him as a doctor.
Greene screamed and raged at Fauci at a hearing of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. Republicans have sought to prove that Fauci tried to suppress information about the origins of Covid-19 and claim he funded research that triggered pandemic that killed millions of people.
The Georgia right-wing firebrand and conspiracy theorist criticized Fauci’s previous comments saying that when people who criticized him were criticizing science and asked if he represented science.
“It’s not a yes or no,” she said.
“We’ll take that a ‘you-don’t-know-what-you-represent,’” she said. Greene proceeded to hold up images of beagles who were experimented on for the National Institutes of Health.
“As a dog lover, I want to tell you this is disgusting and evil, what you signed off on, and these experiments that happened to beagles paid for by the American taxpayer,” she said. “And I want you to know that Americans don’t pay their taxes for animals to be tortured liked this.”
Throughout her hearing, she refused to acknowledge Fauci as “Dr Fauci” but instead as “Mr Fauci.”
“Mr Fauci — because you’re not ‘doctor’ — you’re Mr. Fauci,” she said while asking a question before saying, “No, I don’t need your answer.”
In response, Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, asked Chairman Brad Wenstrup if under the rules, members could deny a doctor is actually a doctor.
“Yes, because in my time, that man does not deserve to have a license,” she said. “As a matter of fact, it should be revoked and he belongs in prison.”
Representative Kwesi Mfume of Maryland lamented the devolution.
“Is this what we have become? Is this what we have devolved into,” he said.
Greene accused Fauci of making up the six-feet social distancing rule–whereas Fauci said that Centers for Disease of Control and Prevention had come up with the guidance during Covid-19.
“I didn’t say I made it up,” he said. “I said it is not based in science and it just appeared.”
In response, Greene held up her the image of the dogs.
“What do dogs have to do with anything we’re talking about today,” he said.
Ms Greene said that it showed what science they valued and showed children in pods during school time amid the Covid-19 pandemic “because of evil science.”
“Your repulsive evil science,” she said. “You know what this committee should be doing? We should be recommending you to be prosecuted. We should be writing a criminal referral because you should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. You belong in prison, Dr Fauci.”
Shortly after Greene’s questioning, Representative Robert Garcia, a Democrat from California, lambasted Greene’s words.
“That was completely irresponsible,” he said. “This might be the most insane hearing I’ve actually attended.”
Throughout the hearing, Garcia and other Democrats apologized to Fauci for attacks from Republicans, noting how he, his wife and daughters received numerous death threats.
Raskin for his part, earlier in the hearing, had said that the attempts to attack Fauci bore similarities to the House Oversight Committee’s attempts to impeach President Joe Biden that have come up short.
The hearing was Fauci’s first public appearance on Capitol Hill since he left as the chief medical adviser for the Biden administration and as director of National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases.
Fauci has become an object or scorn going back to his time as the face of the Trump administration’s coronavirus response, oftentimes having to directly contradict former president Donald Trump’s advice on combating Covid-19.