Comer Says Biden Pardon Won't Cover Fauci If He Lies at Wednesday Senate Hearing

Rand Paul's Senate Homeland Security Committee has released diary entries Fauci kept during the pandemic, and the fight over what Fauci knew and when has moved from paper to the witness stand. Fauci is scheduled to testify Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Paul, and House Oversight Chairman James Comer wants to make sure everyone understands the rules before he sits down.

"Biden's pardon doesn't cover Dr. Fauci's testimony this week and if he continues to lie, he must be held accountable," Comer told Fox News Digital. Comer also posted the warning directly on X.

The facts on the pardon itself aren't in dispute. Joe Biden pardoned Fauci in the final hours of his presidency, covering any federal offenses connected to Fauci's government service between January 1, 2014, and January 19, 2025, according to Just The News. That includes his time as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, his role on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, and his work as chief medical advisor to the president.

What the pardon does not do, as a matter of basic law, is cover a new crime committed after it was signed. If Fauci gives false testimony under oath on Wednesday, that would be a fresh offense outside the pardon's timeframe. Comer's warning isn't a legal stretch. It's a statement of how perjury statutes work.

Comer tied his warning to newly surfaced diary material he says explains the pardon's timing. "We now know why President Biden gave a blanket pardon to Dr. Fauci," Comer said. "While obsessing about his own fame, Dr. Fauci wasn't truthful with the American people about the origins of COVID and advised schools to be closed."

The entry drawing the most attention involves New York City schools. Fauci wrote in his diary, "I spoke with Bill de Blasio (Mayor, NYC) and convinced him based on what I was saying publicly and my conversation tonight to close the NYC schools," according to Fox News. During a closed-door House interview in January 2024, Fauci told lawmakers, "I did not close the schools."

Both statements can be technically true and still create a credibility problem. Fauci never held legal authority to shut down a school system himself. That was de Blasio's call. But the diary entry shows Fauci believed his public statements and a direct private conversation were the deciding factor in de Blasio's decision. Saying "I did not close the schools" to Congress while privately taking credit for closing them in his own diary is exactly the kind of gap Paul's committee is expected to press him on Wednesday.

Fauci has pushed back on the broader premise driving this line of attack. He has said conservative lawmakers turned him into a political target out of anger over the government's pandemic response, not because of any actual dishonesty on his part. That's a fair defense to state plainly: Fauci was the public face of an unpopular, disruptive set of policies, and it's reasonable to ask whether some of the scrutiny he's facing now is retribution rather than fact-finding. Diary entries written under the stress of a fast-moving crisis, without the benefit of hindsight, are also a different animal than sworn congressional testimony delivered months or years later with time to prepare an answer. Reasonable people can disagree about how much weight a private, informal diary entry should carry against a formal answer to a specific question.

Still, the discrepancy is real and it's not the only one. Just The News reported the diaries have revealed a number of differences between what Fauci said publicly and what he was saying and thinking privately, including on mask guidance and on the origins of the virus.

Republican physicians in the House have gone further than Comer on tone, if not on substance. Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., a physician, said Fauci was "enamored with his own fame and vanity" and put "politics above science," calling him "primarily responsible for the resulting multi-generational erosion of trust in American medicine." That's a sweeping causal claim Murphy hasn't backed with data in this reporting, and it should be read as his opinion, not an established fact.

No perjury charge, indictment, or Justice Department investigation into Fauci's prior testimony has been announced as of this writing. Comer's statement is a warning about what could happen if Fauci's Wednesday answers don't line up with the documentary record, not an announcement that any legal process has begun.

The open question heading into Wednesday is straightforward: will Paul's committee ask Fauci directly about the de Blasio entry, and will his answer match what he told the House Oversight Committee under oath in January 2024. If it doesn't, Comer has already signaled where Republicans will go next.