As you can see, this message—which I normally write and send on Sunday morning—is arriving a few days early. I’m leaving for the west side of Michigan tomorrow morning and won’t be back until Sunday evening. For anyone who cares, Jen and I plan to attend worship at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Grand Rapids. Maybe we’ll see you there. By the way, it’s not like I won’t have internet access. I will. It’s just that I’m not one to log into my online accounts using hotel Wi-Fi. So, I figured I’d just send something along today.

I suppose the obvious thing worth talking about is the Fauci hearing that happened yesterday. Did you watch any of it? I had it on while I was in my office. But I mostly listened to it while I was out and around. Admittedly, I found myself becoming uncomfortably angry, more so while watching than listening. And why? Because there Fauci sat beneath the Senate hearing room’s lights, confronted with this exhibit and that exhibit—all the facts—the documents, diary entries, prior testimony, and obvious contradictions in the record. Through all of it, Fauci remained relatively stoic, offering the same answer over and over again:

“On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.”

Apart from being sworn in, this was the only thing he said throughout the entire hearing. It was his answer to every question, even those intended to expose the absurdity of his refusal, such as what day it was or what color the floor was. Interestingly, Fauci told CNN during an interview back in 2022 he would be “very happy to testify before any congressional oversight committee.” He insisted that he had “nothing to hide,” could “explain and validate everything” he had done, and would “cooperate fully.” Apparently, that willingness expired yesterday. I read that he invoked the Fifth Amendment 111 times. It felt more like a thousand to me.

Now, before I go any further, I’m going to offer the only qualifying statement I think Dr. Anthony Fauci deserves. (Eh-hem. That’s me clearing my throat.) Invoking the Fifth Amendment is not legal proof of guilt. The right against self-incrimination belongs to every American. It belongs to the innocent. It also belongs to the guilty.

There. Now to the obvious.

Yes, the Fifth Amendment is a shield against compelled self-incrimination. But I appreciate what Senator Rand Paul pointed out at the beginning of the hearing. The Fifth Amendment doesn’t erase facts. It doesn’t erase recorded testimony. It doesn’t erase the exhibits sitting on the table right in front of Fauci during the hearing. I would add that it also doesn’t certify a man’s level of honesty. It most certainly doesn’t require any onlooking American to pretend they cannot see what they’re seeing. It doesn’t require us to ignore why the Fifth Amendment shield is being raised. That’s because it also doesn’t erase common sense or basic human discernment.

Quite simply, to any normal human being, a man who repeatedly refuses to reconcile documentary evidence with countless statements he’s already previously made under oath doesn’t imply innocence. It suggests guilt. Again, any normal, thinking human being knows this. The logic plainly suggests that when Fauci won’t even acknowledge what he has already confidently acknowledged in the past, the visual here becomes that he was lying before, and now, he fears where admitting to what he previously said might lead.

Unfortunately for Fauci, with each invocation, the spectacle only got worse. And regardless of the Democrat committee members who attempted to run a block for Fauci by misdirecting the hearing’s aim with wild tangents, all the normal people watching knew that while Fauci kept silent, the evidence was talking. The documents were talking. His diary was talking. His previous testimony was talking.

Now, add the pardon to the calculus. Biden (purportedly) gave Fauci an unprecedented presidential pardon. It’s unprecedented because it was extraordinarily broad, covering all offenses related to anything he did between January 1, 2014, and January 19, 2025. It’s also unprecedented because it was preemptive. By definition, the word “pardon” requires an offense that needs forgiving. And so, pardons are ordinarily given after someone has been convicted. But Fauci was never charged for anything, much less convicted. So, why did he need a pardon?

That makes all of this look even worse.

Personally, I think Fauci made a mistake by accepting the pardon. Whatever legal protection it provided, it also created the unmistakable impression that he needed protection from something. Now, with the documentary record already contradicting so much of what he has said, every substantive answer risks exposing him further. And so, all he can really do is drone on and on from behind the Fifth Amendment to keep from colliding with evidence that already suggests conduct serious enough to warrant presidential pardon-level protection.

But regardless of Fauci’s tap dancing, I’m guessing most Americans can see right through it. Most Christians I know certainly can. But then again, Saint Paul instructs us to “test everything” and “hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). That means, innately, we’re not required to surrender our God-given reasoning merely because an authority pleads the Fifth confidently. In the end, when testimony contradicts documents, and today’s claims contradict yesterday’s, recognizing the contradiction is not uncharitable. It’s Godly discernment. Discernment already knows that Fauci’s unprecedented pardon cannot protect him from perjury committed during a Senate hearing held on July 29, 2026. Fauci knows this, too. He knows Wednesday’s words create Wednesday’s liability. And so, he’s pleading the Fifth Amendment to keep from being convicted for previous lies spoken under oath.

It angers me to see him use the law to get away with all this. But until someone offers a lawful workaround, I’m more interested in the glaring irony hovering like a fog above all of this.

Set aside everything else that was said in the hearing and remember that no one present argued against Fauci being the architect for the COVID response. The Republicans criticized him for it. The Democrats praised him, calling him a hero. And yet, both agreed he was responsible for the framework that ultimately suspended the constitutional rights of hundreds of millions of Americans.

Of course, he didn’t design every community’s procedure. He didn’t need to sign every closure order. He didn’t need to lock every church door personally. The architect doesn’t need to swing the hammers on the job site. There were plenty in government in every community ready to swing hammers for him. The point is that his pronouncements and nearly omnipresent authority in all things COVID-related supplied the moral, scientific, and governmental cover for those people to do what they did.

2020 wasn’t that long ago. I remember all of it. I remember even the littlest things—like being shamed by a church member for posting a video showing how smoke particles, which are bigger than COVID, moved right through the masks Fauci was demanding we wear. I remember when I heard about a surfer in California, the only guy on the beach, who was arrested for being out on the waves during the lockdowns—and the horror!—he was on his board at an empty beach without a mask! I remember how Parks Departments around the country put makeshift wooden caps on outdoor basketball hoops to keep anyone from using them. I remember how so many businesses here in Michigan went bankrupt while establishments that performed abortions, sold liquor and lottery tickets, or in some way kept state revenue flowing were deemed essential. I remember how the government strangled religious liberty. I remember how unelected officials appointed to health department boards somehow presumed to decide that the preaching of God’s Word, the reception of the Sacrament, and the consolation of fellow believers was non-essential. I remember how churches were labeled super-spreaders and how Christians were forbidden from gathering for public worship. I remember how countless clergy stood in empty naves and sanctuaries preaching into cameras.

Unfortunately, I also remember how easily so many pastors and churches went along with this nonsense. I remember how more than a year past the lockdowns, at least 40% of Michigan’s churches were still closed, and how for many that were open, they still refused to admit Christians to worship without a mask. No mask, no entry. I remember how they called this love for the neighbor. Candidly, it deserved, and still deserves, another name: heresy. Any church that imposed a human rule barring believers from the in-person preaching of God’s Word and the reception of His gifts crossed an uncrossable line. They obstructed the First Table of God’s Law—the command to love God with all one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength (Commandments 1 through 3)—while pretending to uphold the Second Table’s command to love the neighbor (Commandments 4 through 10).

But Romans 13! But Dr. Fauci and the CDC!

Despicable heresy.

Beyond even these dreadfulnesses, don’t forget that Fauci’s framework and influence also kept families from elderly parents and grandparents dying in nursing homes. Forbidden from entering, they could only press their hands against windows while their loved ones died without familiar voices, a pastor’s prayers, or the touch of someone who loved them. And then those same families were obliterated by ideology. They argued over masks, vaccines, travel, holidays, and whether grandparents could hold their grandchildren. Here in Michigan, Governor Whitmer offered incentives that encouraged neighbors to report one another. We were “loving thy neighbor” when we regarded one another as biological threats and reported those not wearing masks or sitting within six feet of others at Thanksgiving dinner.

And have we forgotten Fauci’s recommendations for schools? Have we forgotten the generation of children who spent their formative years behind masks, never once receiving a hug from their teacher or seeing that same teacher smile? Countless struggled through remote classrooms well into the 2020-21 school year while school administrators pretended that a glowing rectangle was an adequate substitute for human presence. In our school here at Our Savior in Hartland, we kept the masks off, preserved the classroom as a place of genuine human contact, and refused to teach children that every face, breath, and touch was a threat. Interestingly, we were fine. No one got sick. And no one died. Of course, we had to deal with threats from local health officials on occasion. Still, the gratitude of our parents was overwhelming. Again and again, they thanked us for allowing their children to remain children.

Unfortunately for too many school communities around us, anxiety and depression only deepened. It’s also no surprise that suicide rates went through the roof nationally. The children were taught to fear everything—faces, voices, touch, singing, playgrounds, classrooms, and one another. Then the adults who taught them these things acted surprised when loneliness and despair flourished.

I could go on and on about everything I remember. I certainly did back when it was all happening. In the meantime, the point here is that Fauci openly and regularly defended stripping so many rights away, and he did so with the language of necessity. America’s constitutional rights had to yield. Questions had to wait. Dissent was dangerous, and opposing speech was villainized and punished. But obedience was called compassion. All the while, those being crushed beneath the rules were expected to accept that Fauci and his experts were doing what was best because they simply knew better. “Trust the science” gradually began to exclude a person’s right to examine the evidence, and instead began to mean, “Do what you’re told.”

The irony here is that now, suddenly, Anthony Fauci is quite fond of the Constitution’s protections. Now he wants its shelter from those in power sitting before him in the hearing. He wants the Fifth Amendment’s centuries-old insistence that the state may not compel a man to furnish his own harm. He wants precisely the kind of constitutional protection that the rest of us—the ordinary Americans—were told was reckless, selfish, and uncaring.

Fauci is entitled to invoke the Fifth Amendment. But he and his lawyer are fooling themselves if they think the revoltingly obvious disparity is going unnoticed. When Americans pleaded for their constitutional rights, Fauci’s answer was effectively, “Obey.” But when Anthony Fauci fears for his untouchable status, his answer is immediately, “I have rights.” The Constitution, it seems, was negotiable when it stood between the government and ordinary folks. It became sacred the moment Anthony Fauci needed it personally.

I’ve already gone on long enough, which I freely admit happens sometimes. I suppose I’ll simply return to where I started. I began by saying the more Fauci repeated his Fifth Amendment statement, the angrier I got. But here’s the thing. It’s okay to be angry. Saint Paul says pretty plainly, “Be angry” (Ephesians 4:26). Of course, the whole verse is, “Be angry and do not sin.” That means we can be angry, but we ought not let the anger steer us, dominating our every action or emotion, even when it seems like the villain is getting away with murder. Our anger must lead us into faithfulness. That means speaking the truth, maybe even disobeying the government sometimes to resist evil, seeking justice, and praying for an evil doer’s repentance. It may even mean trusting that when Fauci ultimately gets off scot-free—which he probably will—the One who comes again in glory to judge both the living and the dead, Jesus Christ, will do so in perfect righteousness.

Men may conceal the truth, governments may abuse their authority, and earthly justice may arrive slowly or not at all. Nevertheless, Christ is still in charge. Nothing is hidden from Him. The Constitution may or may not actually restrain rulers. Strangely, in this circumstance, it may even protect someone who appears worthy of what happened at Nuremberg. But in the end, it’s Christ—not Fauci, not the government, and not the spirit of the age—who will have the last word. I’m counting on it. I hope you are, too.