The Lord appeared to Solomon at Gibeon in a dream at night. God said, “Ask whatever you wish, and I’ll give it to you.” I Kings 3:5

The newly anointed King Solomon does not ask for great things from God. Not money, or power, or fame or any of the other accompanying pleasures that come with being a king. Instead, Solomon responds, “Give your servant a heart to listen so he may govern your people justly and distinguish good from evil.”

One of my clergy colleagues often makes a point that he prays for wisdom, but he also prays for humility, the humility to know what he doesn’t know. Gifts of wisdom and humility are what we want in our leaders. All of which were sorely lacking in Washington last week, when Senator Rand Paul conducted one more hearing into Dr. Fauci’s leadership during the Covid pandemic.

While the source of the pandemic continues to be questioned by researchers and scientists (See notes), the committee’s Republican senators had already determined the source. Concluding Dr. Fauci was singularly responsible for a pandemic that spread across the globe, based on one NIH Grant, given to the Wuhan lab in China by a subcontractor of a grant recipient, which may or may not have had a lab leak.

If this were known and collaborated as fact, the hearing would have been bad enough, as senators browbeat this 85 -year-old man who did the best he knew how to do, during a deadly pandemic. Days before the hearing, word was out, Senator Paul’s goal was to catch Dr. Fauci in some small misstatement of what he had said previously.

Throughout the pandemic Dr. Fauci gave updates, responding to the high death tolls as the pandemic spread across the country, with overrun hospitals in major cities, and healthcare workers dying from the disease. Giving us changing information as knowledge grew about an unknown virus.

The Senators speaking without wisdom, nor humility and certainly without genuine knowledge, cursed and condemned Dr. Fauci for policies that others put in place. A casual listener would not have realized that, from the condemnation coming from these senators. They had made up their minds long ago and were determined to harm the doctor, trip him up, and find cause to prosecute him.

Dr. Fauci is the red meat their base wants, after listening to too many conspiracy stories, and consumed too many falsehoods. The hearing was designed to create sound bites for national media, and showcase their fiery speeches.

Last week’s Senate Hearing was never intended for the good of the country . . . Nor an honest examination of the pandemic and our response to it. It was not designed to evaluate what we did wrong and what we did right. No, it’s only purpose was to discredit a public servant, who has spent his life in the interest of public health.

The hearing was a shameful exhibit of a dysfunctional Washington at its worst. Led by senators who desperately need the gifts of both humility and wisdom, the skill to listen and the ability to discern good from evil, and right from wrong, before they  abuse another person, as abysmally as they did Dr. Fauci.

Notes  From the web: “The NIH awarded the multi-year grant to the New York-based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, led by Peter Daszak.The Sub-grant: EcoHealth Alliance distributed a portion of these federal funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology from 2014 – 2019

The NIH maintains that the experiments aimed to test whether naturally occurring bat coronaviruses could infect human cells, not to purposefully engineer a more lethal “supervirus.” They argue the specific viral strains used were genetically distinct from SARS-CoV-2 and could not have evolved into COVID-19.

Mischaracterizing Dr. Fauci’s Personal Knowledge and Culpability Comer heavily implies that Dr. Anthony Fauci personally directed, knew about, and covered up illegal engineering at the Wuhan lab.The Reality: A bipartisan, multi-year congressional investigation found no evidence linking Dr. Fauci to personal wrongdoing or proving he deliberately misled Congress. The systemic failures occurred at the level of the grant recipient (EcoHealth Alliance), which violated its contract by failing to report unexpected viral growth to the NIH in a timely manner.

The Scientific Consensus: Broad-scale data, including a comprehensive 2024 survey conducted by the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (GCRI), maintains that a preponderance of infectious disease experts view natural transmission (zoonotic spillover) as considerably more likely than a lab leak.The Official Guidance: This alignment matches the conclusions of a multi-year World Health Organization (WHO) advisory board report, which reaffirmed that the weight of available scientific evidence continues to point to natural.”

Under the Trump Administration,  the CIA and FBI lean toward a lab leak, which is not supported elsewhere.

Link:  NPR July 28, 2026 – Animal spillover? Lab leak? What the science says about the origins of COVID-19 

Link: Snopes 25 Claims involving Dr. Fauci we’ve investigated