Trump says he ‘respects’ Biden’s Fauci pardon but leaves autopen challenge open
The President softened his earlier claim that Biden’s autopen pardons were void as Rand Paul scheduled an Aug. 5 contempt vote and Florida opened a state investigation.
President Donald Trump said July 29 that he respects the sweeping pardon former President Joe Biden granted Dr. Anthony Fauci, while blasting Fauci’s record after watching his combative Senate hearing.
“He was pardoned by Biden, and I respect that. I know how powerful it is,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “They say it’s literally the most powerful thing a president has.”
Trump stopped short of declaring the pardon entirely beyond challenge. He said Biden “probably didn’t sign this one” and suggested there could still be an issue if the autopen was used without the former president’s informed authorization.
“I can’t tell you what the law is,” Trump said. “I’ve heard that you have to have a lot of proof.” He added, “Maybe there’s something on the autopen. Other than that, the power of pardon is very powerful.”
The remarks represent a substantial retreat from Trump’s December declaration that he was “terminating” every Biden document, including pardons, signed by autopen – a claim legal experts doubted would survive in court.
Trump also delivered a blunt verdict on Fauci’s Senate appearance.
“I watched the whole thing today,” the President said. He argued that he inherited Fauci, disagreed with him repeatedly, and would have had to “close down the whole country” had he followed all of Fauci’s advice. Trump cited Fauci’s changing mask guidance and defended leaving many COVID rules to governors.
Trump in fact praised Fauci and other authors of Operation Warp Speed before leaving office at the end of the first Trump administration. The operation was a public-private partnership initiated to accelerate the development and production of COVID shots, which went on to be widely mandated. On January 19, 2021, Trump issued official Presidential Commendations “in recognition of” Fauci’s and others’ “exceptional efforts.”
Fauci “wasn’t a big factor for me,” Trump said July 29, but became “a very big factor for Biden.” He touted Operation Warp Speed and said more Americans died of COVID-19 under Biden.
“COVID was a disaster, but Fauci did not help,” Trump concluded.
Earlier in the day, Trump wrote on Truth Social that Fauci’s “ideas were CRAZY,” accused him of making “too many bad calls,” and said Fauci opposed his early insistence that the virus came from a Wuhan laboratory.
As Zeale News reported, Fauci appeared under subpoena July 29 as the sole witness before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to more than 100 questions about U.S.-funded research in China, COVID-19’s origin, federal records, and intelligence contacts.
“On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution,” Fauci repeated, even when Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., asked what day it was and what color tie he was wearing.
Committee Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., rejected Fauci’s assertion of the privilege, ordered Fauci attorney David Schertler removed after he repeatedly tried to address the committee, and scheduled an Aug. 5 vote on a resolution holding Fauci in contempt of Congress.
Biden’s Jan. 19, 2025, clemency warrant gave Fauci a “full and unconditional pardon” for covered federal offenses he may have committed from Jan. 1, 2014, through the pardon date.
The pardon cannot cover a later false statement, obstruction offense, or contempt of Congress. Republicans argue it removes Fauci’s right to withhold truthful answers about pardoned conduct. Fauci’s attorneys counter that the questions could still expose him to unpardoned criminal liability and say his Fifth Amendment claim remains valid. A contempt resolution could force a court to resolve the dispute.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier opened a separate front Wednesday by announcing a state investigation into Fauci.
“Fauci’s lack of candor to Congress is unbelievable,” Uthmeier wrote. “It’s past time we get the truth of what happened during COVID.”
Uthmeier did not identify a suspected Florida offense or disclose the probe’s scope. A presidential pardon applies only to federal crimes and cannot prevent a viable state prosecution.
The July 29 hearing followed Paul’s release of 1,141 pages of Fauci’s COVID-era journals. As Zeale News previously reported, the documents revived questions about Fauci’s early knowledge of the lab-leak possibility, his role in promoting shutdowns, and his 2021 assertion that the National Institutes of Health had never funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Fauci denies lying and says the Wuhan experiments did not meet the narrower federal regulatory definition of dangerous gain-of-function research.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, released a government-wide policy July 28 ending federal support for dangerous gain-of-function research. The framework arrived amid renewed scrutiny of Fauci and the April indictment of his former senior adviser David Morens for allegedly concealing or destroying federal records related to COVID-19 research.
