"We are in Senator Joseph McCarthy territory"

 

"I have not used TMZ's YouTube channel to vent personal feelings about issues, but I'm going to do that today," Harvey Levin said. "Watching Anthony Fauci before a congressional hearing taking the Fifth Amendment is just one of the most heartbreaking things I have seen in government in my lifetime. And this is something we need to reckon with."

"I'm going to say up front; I have problems with the way the CDC handled COVID," he continued. "I think that they did damage to children, to adults, and I don't think they did it maliciously. I think they did it because they were using their judgment and were overprotective, and I think at times overstated things, things they said they knew but really didn't. And I have personal problems with the way that COVID was handled."

"That said, Anthony Fauci, over a period of decades, has been an amazing public servant. In the 80s, I had many friends who died of AIDS, a horrible, painful death. And I had friends who lived because of Anthony Fauci, because he was willing to look at experimental drugs in a different way than they had looked at them before, and that really resulted in lives saved."

"And Fauci has done so many other things in his career to thwart epidemics, to save lives, not just in the United States, but all over the world. He has been a dedicated public servant who could have made a lot more money outside of government than inside, but he stayed."

"And now we are at a point where members of Congress, and yes, you, Rand Paul, are on a witch hunt. And the best I can say for Rand Paul is that he's being really honest. I mean, he has said now, over a period of years, he wants Anthony Fauci in a jail cell. He has said it out loud. He wants him in a jail cell. That's the point of this hearing. That's why they're doing this."

"They want to take something that Anthony Fauci says and then claim it amounts to perjury, and they want to prosecute him, they want to convict him, and they want to throw him in prison. That's the point of this hearing. There is no other point of this hearing."

"There could be. I mean, there are things they could certainly ask him, but he can't answer, because if he answers, it doesn't matter what he says. You know, if you can prosecute somebody for frickin' seashells on the beach shore, then you could certainly prosecute somebody for what they say in a congressional hearing."

"And that's the climate we're in. We are in a Senator Joseph McCarthy climate, where there is such fear that people have, and legitimate fear, that they'll end up in prison for what they say, no matter what it is, if they are on the wrong side of somebody in Congress or the administration, that they have been silenced. And that's where we are right now."

"We are in Senator Joseph McCarthy territory. And the idea that you have to watch this man take the Fifth Amendment, and again, I will say that I disagree personally with some of the CDC decisions. Absolutely, I did. That said, he's a public servant who worked for us and saved lives for decades. And we are turning him into what Rand Paul wants to be, a criminal. And Rand Paul has a political agenda, and it is prevailing here."

"Watching Rand Paul order security to throw Anthony Fauci's lawyer out of that hearing was unbelievable to me."

"We are in a dark period of America," he concluded.

More public figures need to speak out like this immediately. Republicans are scapegoating Fauci because they can't handle the truth that Donald Trump was directly responsible for COVID-19 getting as bad as it did. He downplayed it from the very start, undermined experts, and spread dangerous misinformation. Meanwhile, Dr. Fauci did everything in his power to save as many lives as possible, urging Americans to wear masks, socially distance, and treat the coronavirus like the deadly threat it was. He's an American hero.

If anyone should be hauled in front of Congress to testify about their behavior during the pandemic, it's Trump!

-Harvey Levin, Occupy Democrats