In summary, Fauci admitted he pushed COVID-19 protocols that lacked scientific rigor, advocated coercive vaccine policies to disrupt people’s lives that likely fueled vaccine hesitancy, and unjustly smeared millions of people as conspiracy theorists for hypothesizing on a COVID-19 origin story that the FBI now admits is likely true.

These admissions are damning, and hopefully, they mark the beginning of a much larger mea culpa from Fauci and his longtime superior, Dr. Francis Collins, the previous director of the National Institutes of Health. …

The fact that Fauci is finally beginning to fess up about the role his policies played in one of the worst disasters in modern history is welcome news. But a two-day closed hearing is not sufficient for something of this magnitude or the allegations facing Fauci, which include an alleged attempt to influence the CIA’s report on the origins of COVID-19.

[I’d like to hope that this will lead to much greater accountability for the failures and abuses of the COVID-19 pandemic, but I’m pessimistic. If Biden wins in 2024, he will want to retain all of those powers that federal agencies abused. If Trump wins, he won’t want any attention drawn to his failures to stop those abuses. If we want COVID accountability, we need a president who didn’t take part in it. — Ed]