The Unmaking of Anthony Fauci

When Anthony Fauci arrives on Capitol Hill tomorrow to testify before Congress, he will be trailed by a security detail he's paying for himself. Fauci has been testifying before the nation's elected officials for roughly four decades now, since his days at the forefront of early AIDS research. In years past, he would have prepped by consulting colleagues and poring over data—he would have been there, as he might say, to speak for science. Now he's under a subpoena from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and has been conferring with his lawyers on how best to navigate a grilling about his own actions—and what seems to be an effort to catch him in a lie, one that isn't covered by the blanket presidential pardon he received from Joe Biden. Once famed for being America's consummate nonpartisan scientist, Fauci is now a far more polarizing kind of public figure: beloved and reviled for what he's said to represent; targeted by threats to end his life. The more he talks, the more he stands to lose.