Joe Biden pardoned Anthony Fauci in the final hours of his presidency — a blanket pardon covering everything Fauci did in his government role going back to 2014. The pardon was supposed to give him total immunity. The whole point of a pardon is that it removes the legal risk of answering questions. You can't be prosecuted for what you admit when you're already pardoned.

Anthony Fauci sat before a Senate committee on Wednesday and refused to answer questions 111 times.

Let that settle in. The man with a presidential pardon — a man who, legally speaking, should have had nothing to hide behind — invoked his Fifth Amendment right 111 times. Senators asked him about classified research in Wuhan. He declined. They asked him about his private diary. He declined. Rand Paul pointed to a red folder sitting directly in front of him and asked whether he had it. He declined to confirm the existence of the folder.

Josh Hawley decided to test exactly how far Fauci was taking this.

"What day of the week is it today?" I respectfully decline to answer. "What color tie are you wearing?" I respectfully decline to answer.

You could hear the laughter in the room. It would be funny if it weren't a congressional investigation into decisions that affected every American life for the better part of three years.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer saw exactly what was happening. "If former President Biden's blanket autopen pardon is valid, then Dr. Fauci has no right to refuse to answer questions," Comer said after the hearing. "Dr. Fauci clearly knows his autopen pardon is on legally questionable grounds and decided to protect himself today rather than provide the truth to the American people."

That's the tell. Biden's pardon wasn't personally signed — it was issued by an autopen, a machine. Its legal validity is genuinely in question. Fauci's lawyers apparently know this. A man who trusted his pardon would have answered the questions. A man who doesn't trust his pardon takes the Fifth 111 times and refuses to confirm what color his tie is.

Rand Paul warned him from the opening. "It's against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress. There will be repercussions to your refusal to testify today." Paul announced his committee would vote on contempt next week. A contempt conviction carries up to a year in prison and $100,000 in fines — consequences that a legally questionable autopen pardon may not cover.

The details senators tried to get Fauci to address paint a portrait of a man who spent years lying to the public while living by different rules in private.

His own diary — released by Senator Paul after it was withheld from the House Oversight Committee by HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra during the Biden administration — showed Fauci suffering a pulmonary infarction five months after his first COVID injection. He told no one. He kept recommending the shots for everyone else. Senator Ron Johnson asked whether he ever considered the injection might have caused his condition. Fauci declined to answer.

Johnson also confronted him with a stack of randomized controlled studies showing ivermectin was 60 to 70 percent effective against COVID — studies that existed on the exact same day Fauci publicly declared there was "no evidence" the drug worked. The evidence was there. Fauci knew it was there. He told the country otherwise.

Then there's the money. Senator Josh Hawley presented emails showing eight federal employees — on government time, using government resources — were deployed to solicit cash prizes for Fauci personally. The Dan David Prize alone was worth $900,000. The list of awards pursued with public employees included the Partnership for Public Service, the Adelson Prize, the Smithsonian Award, and others. "You turned your staff into a full-time application machine," Hawley said. "You got rich while people were dying."

Fauci declined to answer.

Fauci used his one moment at the microphone to attack Rand Paul personally — accusing him of an "unhinged obsession" while his papers visibly shook — then announced he would take the Fifth. His attorney then attempted to testify on his behalf and was ejected from the room. Senator Blumenthal called it a "show trial." Paul noted that no courtroom in America allows a witness to plead the Fifth and then send his lawyer forward to make the case he refused to make himself.

Comer put the bottom line plainly: "Dr. Fauci's actions and lies caused irreparable harm to Americans, and he must face accountability."

One hundred and eleven times, Fauci chose silence over a pardon he apparently doesn't trust. The man who told America to follow the science refused to answer what day of the week it was.

If the pardon is real, he had nothing to lose by talking. If he had nothing to lose by talking, there's only one reason to stay silent.