The GOP’s Contempt Case Against Fauci Hits a Wall

The fallout on the FIFA sell-off plan widens as European soccer officials seek to subpoena Joshua Kushner, plus the FAA finds that air traffic controllers left work early before a deadly collision at La Guardia in March. And whatever happened to the Republican push to prosecute Fauci, we go inside the Trump administration's deliberations. Rand Paul tried to maneuver, but it seemed like through our reporting that he had done this without really talking to the White House. It's Thursday, August 27. I'm Sabrina Sidiqi for the Wall Street Journal, filling in for Alex Osula. This is the PM edition of What's News, The Top Headlines, and Business Stories That Move the World Today. European soccer officials are seeking subpoenas in New York for Joshua Kushner and his venture fund Thrive Capital Management, regarding FIFA's $20 billion proposal to privatize part of its commercial rights. WSJ Sports Editor Joshua Robinson says that UEFA, which governs European soccer, is looking for information that could be used in a potential criminal proceeding against FIFA President Johnny Infantino in Switzerland. UEFA is specifically trying to see how this plan came about, what the negotiations were, and also how they came up with this valuation of $20 billion for this FIFA forward enterprise, which was a way to privatize some of the commercial rights of FIFA's biggest competitions, like the World Cup, like the Women's World Cup, and then sell off a stake in them. They came to a number that was $20 billion, Thrive was going to pay about $4.2 billion for their stake, and what this lawyer's filing today says is that this was actually quite low, and that they arrived at this number in a completely backhanded arrangement. They believe that Infantino was in this to profit personally, that after 2031, his next presidential term, he would go and serve as chairman of FIFA Forward Enterprise, where he would be paid much, much more than the roughly $6 million he currently makes. Infantino has denied that that was his intention. Neither FIFA nor Thrive immediately responded to a request for comment. Joshua says there's a lot of pressure on Infantino from soccer officials, but he's still running unopposed in FIFA's presidential election in March, and the controversy may not actually mean a whole lot for players or fans. FIFA's been able to do this amazing thing where they've been a scandal-ridden organization for decades at this point, and somehow that hasn't tainted their ultimate product, which is the World Cup. We have an update on the March collision at La Guardia Airport. That was when an air Canada jet crashed into a fire truck on the runway, and two pilots died, and six other people were injured. The FAA has found that before the crash, two air traffic controllers left work about an hour early. That meant the two controllers left behind at the tower had no backup during a chaotic night when the airport was handling more than double its usual traffic. The FAA is now moving to fire the two controllers for what it says is a form of time card fraud. The journal understands that the agency has taken steps this year to fire more than 10 controllers for alleged time card fraud or abuse of leave policies. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association says it's discussing time card and leave fraud allegations with FAA leadership. Turning to the Iran War, the journal has learned that the Trump administration has repeatedly told mediators it has no interest in going back to the preliminary deal it struck with Iran and June. That's complicating the diplomatic efforts this week to end the war. Mediators from Pakistan, Oman, and Qatar have all made trips to Tehran recently trying to restart talks, but there hasn't been much progress. Iran's demanding the U.S. return to the terms from June before reopening the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump, however, is sticking with a strategy of squeezing Tehran economically. In the meantime, Tankar attacks continue to disrupt shipping. And President Trump today signed an executive order to change the name of Lake Ontario to quote "Lake America." The U.S. and Canada are in the middle of a trade fight that could last for a long time, and Lake Ontario touches both countries. The new name will probably show up in official U.S. government documents and communications, but it's not likely that Canada will recognize a Lake America. Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney said on social media today that quote "naming reality" means calling it Lake Ontario. And in markets, yesterday's blockbuster revenue forecast from Nvidia reassured investors and stocks climbed today, and Nvidia closed up almost 9 percent, and shares of other companies tied to the AI build out rose to. The Nasdaq led the gains in the indexes and closed up 1.6 percent. Coming up, it was three weeks ago today that a Republican-led committee voted to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress. So why hasn't the Trump administration acted on it? That's after the break. I'm filling in for Alex Oslo this week, but I'm also a National Politics Reporter for the Journal here in Washington. And one of the stories I've been covering this month is this contempt referral for Dr. Anthony Fauci. Just for context, three weeks ago today, a Republican-led Senate committee voted to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress, after he refused to answer the committee's questions during a hearing in late July. On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. And Senator Rand Paul, the chair of that committee, a longtime Fauci critic, said that he was going to make a direct contempt referral to the Justice Department. I think you should answer questions. As far as pleading the Fifth when you have a pardon, all you have to do is tell the truth, just not commit a new crime. Just then, we hadn't really heard anything about it, and what I knew from my reporting was that the Vice President, JD Vance, was supposed to certify this contempt referral in his capacity as Senate President and refer it directly to the Justice Department. So I reached out to Natalie Andrews, my colleague and one of our White House reporters, who also focuses on JD Vance, to try and figure out what was going on. And Natalie is here with me now. Hi, Natalie. Hello, thanks for having me. Thanks for joining. I just had to be interesting to talk about how the story came together, because what you and I reported today is that the contempt proceedings for Fauci have kind of hit a roadblock because the Trump administration doesn't actually think that the strategy that Rand Paul is pursuing is legally sound. Typically, contempt referrals that come from Congress, what's customary is that you hold a full floor vote. Yeah, Rand Paul tried to maneuver. He knew that a contempt resolution couldn't get 60 votes on the Senate floor. So he puts in this note, hey, JD Vance, as Senate President, you could sign it and send it to DOJ. But it seemed like through our reporting that he had done this without really talking to the White House thoroughly. And so it puts the White House in this tough spot of, hey, we don't really like Anthony Fauci. We've been critical of him, but they weren't sure that bypassing a Senate floor vote was going to put this in the most stable condition. Right. When we actually started asking if JD Vance was going to certify this contempt referral, what we learned from people we spoke to is they had not even gotten a document from Rand Paul to certify. Yeah. They really didn't have much sense of what was going on. And when Steve Vannon, who was a long time advisor to President Trump, when he didn't cooperate with the House of Representatives, when they were investigating the January 6 riot on the Capitol, they voted to hold him in contempt. Within three weeks, he was indicted. Yeah. And that's when we started hearing that, hey, we don't think that this would withstand scrutiny in court. I mean, do you really want to start a legal fight that you don't think you can win? And when you're expecting actual investigations from Congress, should the House change the majority? This seems like a road that no one was interested in walking down. But what is funny about, do you really want to start a legal fight that you're not going to win is oftentimes this White House is more than willing to do that. That is correct. So yeah, it is interesting that they've taken this line with Fauci. And it doesn't mean that the door is completely closed on Fauci or revisiting the pandemic. And that's where the president comes in as well. Because one more thing we found out in our reporting is that this is not really a high priority for President Trump. He's been asked about Fauci, especially during the past few weeks when this contempt conversation was in the news. And Trump did really take a position one way or the other. You think Dr. Fauci should base your professions for this? Well, I watched the whole thing today, but more importantly, I was a part of the whole Fauci. I inherited Fauci. He was here from the 1980s. So I had him for a period of time. And I disagreed with him when I left. I mean, Donald Trump was president when COVID happened. He was consulting with Fauci. They had a relationship. The president himself said he has not raised this with Todd Blanche, the Attorney General, or with US Attorney Jean Pierrot. So it does seem like he's kind of lukewarm about it. I do want to note that we reached out to Dr. Fauci's representatives and Fauci and his attorneys have denied any wrongdoing. But it just doesn't look like, at least for now, that the Trump administration is necessarily going to act on this contempt referral. Yeah, it seems like they're looking forward and maybe not back. It was so much fun, Natalie, working on this story with you and getting to talk about it here on the show. Yeah, for sure. I will work with you anytime. Any time. Natalie Andrews covers the White House, here at the Wall Street Journal. And finally, Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI, a company on the frontier of what's possible with artificial intelligence. And he's also a watch guy. One custom creation he's ordered is among the industry's rarest status symbols. Swiss watchmaker Vanguard made just seven of them. They're based on a model called the Orb, which starts at $180,000, but they carry OpenAI's logo and have some other special features. Wall Street Journal contributor Andrew Zuckerer says custom watches are something of a mainstay in big tech culture. You've had employees at companies like Uber, Adobe, Meta, and Alphabet commissioning these watches. Sometimes it says straightforward as putting the company logo on the dial, but other times employees get very creative. Sam Altman decided to put a quote that he is known to say, "Compute is destiny all around the watch." He also put scaling on the crown pusher, which is a favorite Silicon Valley expression. And of course on the back of the watch, there is a line of Python code, but that was suggested by Vanguard's CEO, not Altman. That line of Python means that if AI is deployed, it will be deployed in a safe way. Through an OpenAI spokeswoman, Sam Altman did not comment for this article. And we should note that News Corp owner of the Wall Street Journal has a content licensing partnership with OpenAI. And that's what's news for this Thursday afternoon. Today's show was produced by Danny Lewis and Pierre Bienemet, with supervising producer Tarlie Arbel. I'm Sabrina Sidiqi for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.