Can Republicans Actually Send Anthony Fauci to Jail?
Can Republicans Actually Send Anthony Fauci to Jail?
共和党人真的能把安东尼·福奇送进监狱吗？
In the immediate aftermath of Anthony Fauci’s tense congressional hearing on Wednesday, where he refused to answer any questions and invoked the Fifth Amendment, MAGA figures and Republican officials appeared to be seeking one thing: jail time for the former White House chief medical adviser. 在周三安东尼·福奇（Anthony Fauci）那场气氛紧张的国会听证会结束后，福奇拒绝回答任何问题并援引了宪法第五修正案。此后，MAGA（让美国再次伟大）阵营人士和共和党官员似乎只追求一件事：让这位前白宫首席医疗顾问坐牢。
“Why, when Fauci walks off of there today, is he not cuffed?” Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President Donald Trump, asked on his War Room podcast on Wednesday. “People are furious today to cut on this and see Fauci hiding behind the Fifth Amendment … He should die in prison.” “为什么福奇今天从那里走出来时没有被戴上手铐？”特朗普总统的前顾问史蒂夫·班农（Steve Bannon）周三在他的播客节目《作战室》（War Room）中问道。“人们今天看到福奇躲在第五修正案背后感到非常愤怒……他应该死在监狱里。”
“Why isn’t he under arrest?” far-right podcaster Matt Walsh wrote on X. “Why isn’t he facing any real consequences? Why aren’t you actually doing anything?” “为什么他没有被捕？”极右翼播客马特·沃尔什（Matt Walsh）在X上写道。“为什么他没有面临任何真正的后果？你们为什么什么都不做？”
Fauci appeared before the US Senate committee investigating his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and invoked his constitutional right to stay silent, known as the Fifth Amendment, over 100 times. In his opening statement explaining his decision, he described Senator Rand Paul, who chaired the hearing, as having an “unhinged obsession” with him. 福奇出席了美国参议院调查他应对新冠疫情表现的委员会听证会，并援引了宪法赋予他的沉默权（即第五修正案），次数超过100次。在解释这一决定的开场白中，他形容主持听证会的参议员兰德·保罗（Rand Paul）对他有一种“疯狂的执念”。
“The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars,’” Fauci said. Paul has long accused Fauci of covering up what could have been the origins of Covid-19. “我能得出的唯一结论是，他传唤我出席委员会的唯一原因，就是想让我说出任何话，哪怕是一点点，来证明他此前多次公开宣称我最终会‘锒铛入狱’的承诺，”福奇说道。保罗长期以来一直指责福奇掩盖新冠病毒的潜在起源。
As calls for Fauci’s imprisonment grow louder from far-right influencers and podcasters, WIRED turned to legal experts to assess just how likely it is that Republicans in Congress could jail the former public health official. 随着极右翼网红和播客对监禁福奇的呼声越来越高，《连线》（WIRED）杂志咨询了法律专家，以评估国会共和党人将这位前公共卫生官员送进监狱的可能性究竟有多大。
Last year, Fauci received a preemptive pardon from former President Joe Biden, which covered his actions from 2014 until 2025 and made him immune from prosecution for federal crimes during that period but not for anything that he has said or done subsequently. 去年，福奇获得了乔·拜登总统的预防性赦免，涵盖了他从2014年到2025年的行为，使他免于在此期间因联邦罪行受到起诉，但不包括他在此之后所说或所做的任何事情。
Republicans like Paul, however, believe that anyone who has received a presidential pardon automatically loses their Fifth Amendment rights, citing a Supreme Court case from 1896 as proof. “I think there is a very real chance that he could be prosecuted for that,” Paul told CBS News after the hearing. “A court ultimately would have to determine: Does the Fifth Amendment apply to someone who already has a pardon?” 然而，像保罗这样的共和党人认为，任何获得总统赦免的人都会自动失去第五修正案赋予的权利，并引用1896年的一起最高法院案件作为证据。“我认为他因此被起诉的可能性非常大，”保罗在听证会后告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻（CBS News）。“法院最终必须裁定：第五修正案是否适用于已经获得赦免的人？”
Paul said his committee will hold a vote next week on whether to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress, a charge that carries a potential punishment of up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $100,000. If passed, it will be sent to the Senate floor where it would require 60 votes to succeed, which is highly unlikely given it would require Democrats to side with Republicans. 保罗表示，他的委员会下周将就是否以藐视国会罪起诉福奇进行投票，该罪名最高可判处一年监禁和最高10万美元的罚款。如果投票通过，该议案将提交至参议院全体会议，需要60票才能通过，考虑到这需要民主党人站在共和党人一边，这种情况极不可能发生。
In 2020, Trump pardoned numerous people before he left office, including disgraced former national security adviser Mike Flynn and his former campaign chair Paul Manafort. At the time, US constitutional scholar Aziz Huq concluded that the pardons opened up the possibility of contempt if those Trump associates refused to testify before Congress about action they took during Trump’s first term in office. 2020年，特朗普在离任前赦免了许多人，包括声名狼藉的前国家安全顾问迈克·弗林（Mike Flynn）和他的前竞选主席保罗·马纳福特（Paul Manafort）。当时，美国宪法学者阿齐兹·胡克（Aziz Huq）得出结论称，如果这些特朗普的同僚拒绝就他们在特朗普第一任期内的行为向国会作证，这些赦免令就为藐视国会罪提供了可能性。
Bannon himself was pardoned by Trump in 2021, but only for specific federal charges related to his “We Build the Wall” scheme, whose leaders were charged with defrauding donors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in the name of a border wall between the US and Mexico. So in 2022, when Bannon refused to hand over documents or appear for a hearing in Congress related to his role in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, he was found in contempt of Congress and sentenced to four months in jail. 班农本人在2021年获得了特朗普的赦免，但这仅限于与他“我们筑墙”（We Build the Wall）计划相关的特定联邦指控，该计划的领导人被指控以美墨边境筑墙的名义诈骗捐赠者数十万美元。因此，在2022年，当班农拒绝提交文件或出席国会关于他在2021年1月6日国会山骚乱中所扮演角色的听证会时，他被裁定藐视国会并被判处四个月监禁。
But Fauci was careful to specify that his decision to invoke the Fifth Amendment was not in relation to anything he said or did in the period covered by his pardon, but specifically about what he might be induced to say during the hearing. 但福奇谨慎地指出，他援引第五修正案的决定与他赦免期内所说或所做的任何事情无关，而是专门针对他在听证会上可能被诱导说出的言论。
“Pardons cannot apply to future conduct,” Huq tells WIRED. “Ergo, to the extent the concern was a prosecution for perjury or material omissions in statements to Congress, then those offenses would be a basis for Fifth Amendment invocation, and so not amenable to contempt.” Which is to say, Fauci should theoretically be safe here. “赦免不能适用于未来的行为，”胡克告诉《连线》。“因此，如果担忧的是因向国会作证时作伪证或重大遗漏而被起诉，那么这些罪行将成为援引第五修正案的依据，因此不构成藐视国会。”也就是说，从理论上讲，福奇在这里应该是安全的。
Barbara McQuade, who served as the US attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan from 2010 to 2017, agrees. When asked if Paul and his fellow Republican senators on the committee could jail Fauci, McQuade said, “The answer is no.” 2010年至2017年担任密歇根州东区联邦检察官的芭芭拉·麦奎德（Barbara McQuade）对此表示赞同。当被问及保罗和委员会中的共和党参议员同事是否能将福奇送进监狱时，麦奎德说：“答案是不能。”
“Each of us has a constitutionally guaranteed right against self-incrimination as long as we have a reasonable fear of criminal prosecution,” McQuade tells WIRED. “Just because Fauci got a pardon for crimes he ‘may’ have committed in the past does not give him a get-out-of-jail free card for any crimes he might commit after the date of the pardon.” “只要我们有合理的理由担心受到刑事起诉，我们每个人都拥有宪法保障的反对自证其罪的权利，”麦奎德告诉《连线》。“仅仅因为福奇因过去‘可能’犯下的罪行获得了赦免，并不意味着他获得了在赦免日期之后可能犯下的任何罪行的‘免死金牌’。”
McQuade says the possibility that Paul and his fellow senators were “laying a perjury trap” for Fauci meant that invoking the Fifth Amendment was entirely justified. This is backed up by the Supreme Court’s ruling that even “innocent men” fearful of being “ensnared by ambiguous circumstances” can stay silent without facing legal threats. 麦奎德表示，保罗和参议员同事们可能在为福奇“设置伪证陷阱”，这意味着援引第五修正案是完全正当的。最高法院的裁决支持了这一点，即即使是担心被“模糊环境所困”的“无辜者”，也可以保持沉默而不会面临法律威胁。
Huq noted, however, that he cannot give a definitive assessment, because he doesn’t know “what the basis for the Fifth Amendment invocation in each case was.” 然而，胡克指出，他无法给出明确的评估，因为他不知道“每种情况下援引第五修正案的具体依据是什么”。
McQuade also flagged that a mechanism exists for Congress to compel Fauci to testify, but to do so he would need to be granted immunity from his testimony being used against him. “That immunity would be binding on the Justice Department as well,” McQuade added. 麦奎德还指出，国会确实存在一种强制福奇作证的机制，但要做到这一点，他需要获得豁免权，即他的证词不能被用来对他不利。“这种豁免权对司法部也具有约束力，”麦奎德补充道。
Fauci’s pardon covers only federal charges, which means he is also open to prosecution by individual states. And just hours after the hearing this week, James Uthmeier, the Republican attorney general of Florida, wrote on X that his “office is launching an investigation into Dr. Fauci. It’s past time we get the truth of what happened during Covid.” Uthmeier’s office did not respond to a request for comment about what specifically the investigation would be looking into. 福奇的赦免仅涵盖联邦指控，这意味着他仍可能受到各州的起诉。就在本周听证会结束几小时后，佛罗里达州共和党总检察长詹姆斯·乌斯迈尔（James Uthmeier）在X上写道，他的“办公室正在对福奇博士展开调查。我们早就该查清新冠疫情期间到底发生了什么。”乌斯迈尔的办公室没有回应关于调查具体内容的置评请求。