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EXCLUSIVE: Biden pardon won’t shield Fauci if he lies to Congress, Comer says

EXCLUSIVE: Biden pardon won’t shield Fauci if he lies to Congress, Comer says

EXCLUSIVE: House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is warning Dr. Anthony Fauci that his presidential pardon has limits ahead of the former public health official’s high-profile day on Capitol Hill. Fauci is set to testify before a GOP-led Senate panel on Wednesday, days after hundreds of pages of his COVID-19 pandemic-era diary entries were made public. “We now know why President Biden gave a blanket pardon to Dr. Fauci. 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,” Comer told Fox News Digital. LEGACY MEDIA IGNORES MASSIVE ANTHONY FAUCI DOCUMENT RELEASE ALLEGING HE MISLED CONGRESS ON COVID ORIGINS “Americans are still reaping the consequences of Dr. Fauci’s actions. Biden’s pardon doesn’t cover Dr. Fauci’s testimony this week and if he continues to lie, he must be held accountable.” Fauci was among several recipients of controversial “preemptive pardons” by former President Joe Biden made during the final hours of the Democratic administration. The pardon covers any offenses from January 1, 2014, through its issue date, or anything related “to his service as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force or the White House COVID-19 Response Team, or as Chief Medical Advisor to the President.” FAUCI PRIVATELY TOOK CREDIT FOR COVID-19 LOCKDOWNS DESPITE PUBLIC DENIAL, NEWLY EXPOSED DIARY ENTRIES REVEAL Because the pardon covers conduct during his government service, there will likely be some debate over whether it would protect him from liability stemming from his testimony. But other House Republicans are also accusing Fauci of behaving in a way that hurts public trust in U.S. health, including the co-chairs of the House GOP Doctors’ Caucus — both of whom are physicians themselves. “Dr. Fauci, enamored with his own fame and vanity, put politics above science during the pandemic. He is primarily responsible for the resulting multi-generational erosion of trust in American medicine,” Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., told Fox News Digital. “A perfect example of ego destroying whatever achievements he had prior to the pandemic.” FAUCI’S NEWLY RELEASED COVID DIARIES REVEAL BIZARRE FIXATION ON FAME AS PANDEMIC DEATHS MOUNTED Rep. John Joyce, R-Pa., told Fox News Digital that Fauci “must be held accountable” by the House as well as the Senate. “The release of Dr. Fauci’s diary entries validates what many Americans suspected all along: he was not honest about the origins of COVID-19,” Joyce said. “His fixation on preserving his own image and maintaining a position of power eroded public trust, undermined the integrity of our public health institutions, and failed the American people.” Diary entries made public by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a longtime Fauci critic and chair of the committee before which Fauci is appearing on Wednesday, show the high-profile doctor reflecting on his pandemic-era fame and raising questions about the disease’s origins. Some entries appear to show Fauci taking credit for influencing policies that closed schools during the pandemic, something that has become one of the most hotly debated aspects of how the government handled COVID. He told the House Oversight Committee in January 2024, however, “I did not close the schools.” Fauci has long denied any wrongdoing and instead has argued that he’s been made a political target by people on the right who are critical of how governments handled COVID-19.

Flock surveillance spreads across the South as red-state lawmakers seek to axe ‘1984’-style tracking tools

Flock surveillance spreads across the South as red-state lawmakers seek to axe ‘1984’-style tracking tools

State lawmakers in West Virginia‘s Freedom Caucus are seeking to ban AI-powered Flock surveillance cameras statewide, arguing the technology violates citizens’ Fourth Amendment right to privacy. “The West Virginia Freedom Caucus strongly opposes the unchecked expansion of automated surveillance technologies, including Flock Safety camera systems, automated license plate readers (ALPRs), AI-powered facial recognition, multimodal vehicle recognition, and emerging ‘gun detection’ software that claims to identify armed citizens based on body shape or movement,” West Virginia Delegate Chris Anders, the Chairman of West Virginia’s Freedom Caucus, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “These technologies represent a dramatic expansion of government surveillance that is fundamentally at odds with the Fourth Amendment,” Anders added. THE SURVEILLANCE CAMERA ON YOUR STREET CORNER: LAWFUL SPYING OR CONSTITUTIONALLY PROBLEMATIC? “No state or local government should be mass tracking the daily movements of law-abiding citizens without a warrant. Mass surveillance has no place in a free society,” Anders also said in a statement posted to the caucus’ X account. The caucus is calling on all state municipalities to immediately remove automated license plate readers such as the ones run by the security company Flock Safety. “The Constitution does not disappear because technology advances,” Anders added. The caucus plans on combatting the cameras and surveillance technologies by reintroducing a previously failed legislative measure called the Fourth Amendment Restoration Act. The bill would prohibit a series of AI-powered surveillance technologies from being used by law enforcement and other agencies in the state. The technologies it would ban include facial recognition software, surveillance drones, license plate readers and more. “For two consecutive years, the Fourth Amendment Restoration Act has been introduced in the West Virginia Legislature, yet it has failed to reach the Governor’s desk. That must change,” Anders also said, placing blame for the bill’s previous failures at the feet of the state’s legislative leadership. “Despite growing public concern over government surveillance, Speaker Roger Hanshaw and House Judiciary Chairman JB Akers declined to bring the bill forward for consideration. As a result, the House was never given the opportunity to debate or vote on the legislation,” Anders wrote in an email to Fox News Digital. “If House leadership continues to deny the people’s elected representatives the opportunity to vote on this fundamental constitutional issue, the Freedom Caucus will use every parliamentary tool available to insist that the Fourth Amendment Restoration Act receive an up-or-down vote in both chambers. Constitutional rights should never be quietly buried in committee,” Anders added. Chairman Akers, in a response to Anders’ comments, told Fox News Digital, “We actually passed a bill last session that limits the amount of surveillance law enforcement may engage in on private property. Unfortunately, Chris Anders submits sloppily drafted bills given to him by outside groups. In the 4th Amendment context, his proposals would prevent even normal law enforcement actions that conservatives support.” “Last session, he tried to amend a bill in a way that would have prevented police from entering property even if a dead body were in plain view in the front yard. Bluntly, his idea was dumb,” Akers said of Anders’ proposal draft. “He left me no choice but to say that. If he’s going to blame others for failing to get his bills through, then he needs to do better work. Frankly, I think he’d rather see his bad bills fail so he can then scream RINO for clicks.” Other Freedom Caucus members also objected to the Flock cameras. “The Fourth Amendment was written specifically to stop the government from engaging in generalized surveillance and warrantless searches,” West Virginia Freedom Caucus Secretary Henry Dillon said in a statement. He argued that “Flock cameras don’t just identify criminals — they create a database documenting where law-abiding citizens worship, seek medical care, conduct business, and travel.” “That is fundamentally incompatible with a free society,” he said. JOHNSON FACES GOP REVOLT OVER WARRANTLESS SURVEILLANCE POWERS AHEAD OF KEY VOTE Another Freedom Caucus member, state Sen. Craig Hart, pointed to a series of alleged police abuses involving Flock cameras in Georgia, including a 2025 incident in which Braselton Police Department Chief Michael Steffman was arrested for allegedly using automated license plate readers to stalk and harass people. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Atlas of Surveillance, at least five West Virginia municipalities incorporate Flock Safety license plate readers, while other municipalities like Wheeling and the state capital of Charleston operate drones, camera registries and intelligence fusion centers. The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the West Virginia city of Huntington after its mayor and city council agreed to a $2.1 million deal with Flock for AI-powered surveillance equipment. “If the Court allows the contract to proceed, Huntington would be blanketed in license plate recognition cameras with vehicle fingerprint technology, live video cameras, gunshot detection audio devices, and even automatically dispatched drones,” the ACLU wrote in a statement. The ACLU said more than 50 citizens attended the city council meeting to voice their disapproval of the agreement. Meanwhile, Huntington Mayor Patrick Farrell argued that Flock cameras in other states have already helped catch West Virginia suspects. Recounting a pursuit of a murder suspect who allegedly shot a woman in the head near Huntington, Farrell said “he was going back to Michigan, and luckily for us, some other city had license plate reader cameras that caught the car.” “That gave us the lead that led to his arrest in Michigan. So it helps our law enforcement do its work faster, more efficiently, and that’s the kind of success that I think we need more of,” the mayor said. Despite the safety argument, Anders and his caucus insist the technology violates the Constitution. “The Founders did not fight a revolution so government could monitor innocent citizens everywhere they travel,” Anders told Fox News Digital. “George Orwell’s 1984 was intended as a warning, not an instruction manual. We should be striving for more 1776, not more 1984.” “The Fourth Amendment Restoration Act does not prevent police from investigating crime. It simply requires government to do what the Constitution

New audio undercuts Dems who defended Biden, slammed Hur after classified docs report revealed memory loss

New audio undercuts Dems who defended Biden, slammed Hur after classified docs report revealed memory loss

After special counsel Robert Hur’s 2023 investigation and the subsequent report into former President Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents, Democrats rushed to defend the 46th president from his characterization that Biden was an “elderly man with a poor memory.” The left-wing’s narrative surrounding Biden’s mental cognition — especially as he was running for re-election against President Donald Trump — is now crumbling after audio tapes from the investigation were revealed Monday night. Prominent Democrats lined up to defend Biden when the initial report was released in 2024, many using the same line that Hur’s report was “gratuitous.” Then-Vice President Kamala Harris was chief among the chorus of defenders, saying that the report was “inaccurate and inappropriate.” “The way that the president’s demeanor in that report was characterized could not be more wrong on the facts,” she told reporters at an event in Washington at the time. She also said the report was “clearly politically motivated, gratuitous.” Months later, Biden dropped out of the presidential race and was replaced on the ticket by his No. 2 without a primary election to decide his replacement. BIDEN’S HUR INTERVIEW TAPES COULD NOW GO PUBLIC AFTER HIS ATTORNEYS WAVE WHITE FLAG “What everyone will soon realize is that this is a Republican special counsel who completely went out of his way to editorialize, to include material in his report that is unnecessary and irrelevant to what he was tasked with doing,” Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., piled on in comments to ABC at the time. Hur’s appointment was nonpartisan. In 2023, Hur was investigating Biden for retaining classified information. At the center of the investigation were audio tapes of Biden from interviews with his “Promise Me, Dad” memoir ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer, from 2016 and 2017. Hur’s report concluded that Biden did, in fact, retain classified documents, but that prosecuting him might not lead to a conviction, because he could be viewed “as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” “Mr. Biden’s memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017 and in his interview with our office in 2023,” the report said. BIDEN’S FIGHT TO KEEP HUR INTERVIEW TAPES UNDER WRAPS SUFFERS FRESH COURT BLOW After a prolonged legal battle during which Biden sought to keep the audio tapes private, a nonprofit called the Oversight Project obtained them via public records requests. The damning tapes reveal Biden’s inability to remember basic names and dates. In one instance, on April 24, 2017, Biden struggled to recall the names of two economic advisers. “I’ll think of his name,” said Biden, who at the time was a private citizen and former vice president. “I should write the names down because I keep forgetting them.” There was then a long pause before Zwonitzer prompted Biden by saying Alan Krueger’s name. BIDEN SCORES TEMPORARY COURT VICTORY AS TRUMP-APPOINTED JUDGE DELAYS RELEASE OF HUR INVESTIGATION MATERIALS In another instance, when trying to recall a memorial he attended for a fallen service member, Biden forgot the date of the service and name of the deceased. “I think I went to that memorial service in Wilmington. It says [REDACTED] December the 4th, but I don’t — I know what this means. Memorial service — [REDACTED] gets names really f—ed up,” said Biden. “So it says memorial service for [REDACTED]. I don’t think her name was [REDACTED]. Or I forget [REDACTED].” The interviews were marked by consistent lapses in memory. But in 2024, that didn’t stop Democrats from accusing Hur of being a partisan activist who intentionally tried to tarnish Biden and his chances in a rematch against Trump. Andrew Weissman, a former general counsel to the FBI, cried foul on MSNBC. “That is not the role of the Department of Justice … to talk about your memory today — irrelevant, it is gratuitous,” he reportedly said. “And it is also exactly what you’re not supposed to do, which is putting your thumb on the scale that could have political repercussions.” Ian Sams, a spokesperson for Biden’s general counsel, said at the time that the report was “gratuitous.” “When you are the first special counsel in history not to indict anybody, there is pressure to criticize and to make, you know, statements that maybe in otherwise you wouldn’t make,” Sams reportedly said. “I think this issue of age is already out there, and when November comes, it’s going to be a choice between two people,” said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., told POLITICO. “I was with a congressional leadership about two weeks ago, and no one walked out of that meeting, saying, ‘Oh, my God, it was like he wasn’t in charge.’” Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., who at the time had just spent a day traveling with Biden, insisted that he was, “at the very top of his game, all the way through it, both in private and in person.” Later in 2024, Biden was yanked from the top of the presidential ticket after an embarrassing debate performance against then-candidate Donald Trump, which showcased his apparent mental decline. Harris, serving as vice president at the time, was then coronated as the party’s presidential nominee despite never winning a primary. When she ran in 2020, Harris never made it to the primaries, dropping out on December 3, 2019, months before the first elections took place. A Biden spokesperson ducked the former president’s memory in a statement to CBS. “President Biden’s conversations for a book a decade ago that discussed his late son are private, and were provided to the Department of Justice on the express condition they stay that way,” TJ Ducklo told the outlet. “Reversing course and making them public is just the latest example of this Administration weaponizing the DOJ for political retribution.” “It’s wrong, and while President Biden disagrees with today’s decision, he also respects the courts and the vital role an independent judiciary plays in a healthy democracy.”