Dr. Anthony Fauci’s disastrous appearance before the Senate on Wednesday just keeps getting worse — for him.
The man who once stood at the pinnacle of the American liberal publicity machine has already been exposed by his own diary as a shameless self-promoter who gloried in his own celebrity during a pandemic that devastated his country.
On Wednesday, he not only confirmed that view, he opened himself for even greater derision — and one of the most brutal shots came on the social media platform X from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy.
Dear Diary… If I plead the Fifth, will I still be famous? pic.twitter.com/f0OwHbTOMO
— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) July 29, 2026
“Dear Diary … If I plead the Fifth, will I still be famous?” Kennedy wrote.
In a doctored photo with the post, Kennedy is to Fauci’s right, holding a pair of handcuffs.
To Fauci’s left is Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, head of the National Institutes of Health. Bhattacharya is holding a beagle, a reference to controversial vivisection procedures on the breed sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases while Fauci was its director. (In May 2025, Fox News reported that Bhattacharya had closed the NIH beagle labs.)
And Kennedy’s post nailed it, given the vainglorious nature of Fauci’s diary musings.
He recorded horrific death tolls, of course, but that seemed to come off in second place to his self-congratulations on his own fame — a profile in The Washington Post! A Maureen Dowd column in The New York Times! A profile in The Atlantic!
For a man like that — with an ego like that — taking the Fifth Amendment to avoid criminal prosecution had to war mightily with the obvious damage taking the Fifth was going to do to his lasting legacy.
Every American has a right to avoid self-incrimination — the Founders put that in the Fifth because they were all too aware of how the tyrants of the British monarchy had used the legal system against their own subjects.
If Mafia dons can stay out of prison by invoking the Fifth, that’s a small price to pay for innocent Americans being able to breathe freely knowing their own testimony cannot be compelled against them in a court of law.
But Fauci is in a class almost by himself. He’s already got a pardon in his pocket from the previous president. He’s been immunized against prosecution for his past crimes more effectively than any American was ever immunized against the COVID-19 virus (and probably more safely).
When he chose on Wednesday to invoke the Fifth — reluctantly, he claimed, and only on the advice of his attorneys, of course — his only plausible intent was to avoid future crimes, such as lying under oath, because he is simply refusing to tell the truth now.
And it shows:
😂😂👏🏻👏🏻 If nothing else comes of this, the revelation of the real Anthony Fauci is sure to be devastating to his delusion of grandeur. Not nearly enough bc he belongs in prison, but it’s something.
— Diane Sullivan (@SullyMom23) July 29, 2026
I think he’ll be famous for setting a record on how many times the 5th was invoked.
— Alexandra Spears ✝️🇺🇸🪈 (@Alexandra4Trump) July 29, 2026
Remember when Fauci was so adored they made a doll for him? I think some a lot of those people who bought the doll are now sticking pins in it.
— Owlen–A Sowell Man (@OwlenRose) July 29, 2026
The amount of people still glorifying him is astounding. It’s hard to even believe it. The evidence of his own writings in front of them and it doesn’t matter. Why? Because they have TDS.
— Becky (@hre26423) July 29, 2026
Taking the Fifth to avoid prosecution for the past is one thing — it’s an American invoking his rights. (And if Fauci’s goal was to thwart his longstanding nemesis, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, it probably didn’t even work at that.)
Taking the Fifth solely to avoid telling the truth in the present is another thing entirely — it’s a criminal covering up his wrongs.
That’s the image Fauci is projecting to the American public today — critics and supporters alike.
And it’s the image that should follow Fauci to his grave.
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