Friends, enough’s enough. It’s time to take the investigation into Anthony Fauci and COVID’s origins out of the realm of political grandstanding and put it where it belongs: before a federal grand jury.
The best way to do that now is to appoint a special prosecutor or to refer the case to Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for D.C. Pirro has decades of experience and her office has access to something congressional investigators lack: a federal grand jury with subpoena authority who can prosecute recalcitrant witnesses for contempt.
It’s time to use that power. Even if it means we let Fauci off the hook.
Let me explain. First: ensure we subpoena everything. Get the documents, the emails, and the people. Put the scientists, government officials, grant administrators, and everyone else involved under oath. Follow the money from American agencies through the usual NGOs and into coronavirus research.
And yes, subpoena Fauci.
Now, here’s the part that won’t go down smoothly with the public: If necessary, give Fauci immunity from prosecution broad enough to eliminate his Fifth Amendment privilege.
Once an immunized witness no longer faces a legitimate risk of prosecution based on compelled testimony, he cannot simply invoke the Fifth and refuse to answer. Continued refusal will ultimately result in a holding of contempt. (Remember the Clintons’ Whitewater affair? Their real estate “partner,” Susan MacDougal, did 18 months for contempt for exactly this circumstance) (can you imagine what story she was protecting?).
Additionally: bring in those who were supposedly at the White House meeting at which Fauci received a pardon. We reiterate here: there is no record of Joe Biden even being there. What does exist are at least five Biden staffers who were apparently there but who gave differing stories. Two staffers have taken the Fifth under oath themselves on this issue.
As our Legal Editor explains HERE — the burden of proof regarding this “pardon” for Fauci resides with him. We see no evidence he can meet that burden.
Personally, I don’t care about Fauci. He’s a little man who became a big one suddenly and succumbed to his worst impulses. He did tremendous damage to this nation, to our health system, and to a generation of kids who are so un-socialized they think communism — the most discredited political system in history — to be an attractive option.
So the point isn’t to predetermine anybody’s guilt. It is to finally establish the facts.
Five years of congressional hearings, conflicting scientific claims, disappearing records, bureaucratic finger-pointing and carefully lawyered answers have not given Americans a definitive accounting of COVID’s origins—or Washington’s role in funding research that may have contributed to the catastrophe.
A federal grand jury can compel answers. And then issue a full report detailing its findings.
Convene one. Put everyone under oath. And follow the evidence wherever it leads.
Even if it means Fauci doesn’t go to jail. History is more important than one little man who wanted to be a big one.
I went to college with a few unique characters. One of my fellow graduates who fit that bill was having trouble finding a job after receiving his diploma. He decided to improvise. By improvise, I mean lie. He falsified a resume, changing his major from English to Finance, adding some experience, a few licenses, and seeking interviews. He overdid it.
He got a job as a supervisor, managing a team, with his own office and a nice salary.
The scam lasted about a week before the company realized he had no idea what he was doing.
It worked out for him. He got two weeks’ pay—enough to get him through the summer. The finance company, with egg on its face for failing to do its due diligence, took no action against him. He eventually found a job that fit his interests and matched his skills. Today he is quite successful doing work he loves. Needless to say, it wasn’t in finance.
That financial institution could have seriously damaged its reputation if the story had gotten out. They made a mistake, but it was an oversight. The company likely tightened its hiring protocols to ensure it never happened again.
Today we are seeing unqualified and incompetent people hired by prestigious institutions. These often are not simple errors but the product of willful blindness, an obsession with DEI, and woke ideology. Hiring based on skin color or political ideology is often a violation of labor laws and always a violation of common sense.
We’ve been seeing it a lot lately, but two stories this week are standouts.
Cambridge University is one of the greatest institutions of higher learning in the Western world. It is supposedly filled with some of the brightest minds anywhere. Yet it recently had to part ways with a faculty member after being willfully duped.
If you haven’t heard, sociology professor Jason Arday resigned after his lies about his past became public. Arday claimed:
• That, due to autism, he was unable to speak until age 11 and unable to read or write until age 18.
• That he was part of the famous “Seven Up!” research project tracking 14 children throughout their lives. The project began in 1964; Arday wasn’t born until 1985, making participation impossible.
• That he ran 30 marathons in 35 days while suffering an epileptic seizure and a broken leg.
• That he survived cancer, a suicide attempt, and a car accident that left him in a coma for three months, during which doctors discussed removing him from life support.
• That he was a youth soccer star who played on a semi-professional team.
• That he raised £5 million for charity.
• That he was the victim of numerous racist incidents, including having a severed pig’s head delivered to his parents’ home.
• That he had published a book.
These ridiculous claims obviously cannot all be true. It is quite possible none of them are. Yet the University of Cambridge bought them hook, line, and sinker. Anyone with an iota of common sense would have taken a brief look at Arday’s background to verify these stories. But, as they say, common sense isn’t that common, especially when people are blinded by woke ideology and either want to believe or are afraid to call b.s.
When Arday was hired, the powers that be at Cambridge were overjoyed. They proudly announced on their website that Arday “will be the youngest Black person ever appointed to a professorship at Cambridge—a platform he intends to use to inspire more people from under-represented backgrounds into higher education, building on the university’s many initiatives in this area.” Cambridge also wrote that “a major focus of his work will be supporting Cambridge’s wider efforts to recruit a more diverse range of students and staff.”
Oops.
Naturally, more problems followed. Arday has been credibly accused of plagiarism in academic work, including his PhD thesis. Claims about fellowships, co-authored books, and academic affiliations have been disproven. He has also alleged that he was the victim of horrific acts of racism and violence on the Cambridge campus.
Journalists exposed this affront to academic integrity, and now Cambridge — that bastion of higher learning — is embarrassed. Or at least, they should be.
Assuming they’re capable of it.
Then there’s the city of Mount Vernon, New York, just north of the Bronx, where the police department had to just terminate one of its commissioners. Deputy Commissioner Jennifer Lackard was arrested by the NYPD after allegedly helping her son carry out a broad-daylight shooting in the 44th Precinct, just behind the Bronx Criminal Courthouse.
You read that right. A Deputy Commissioner of the Mount Vernon Police Department allegedly drove the getaway car for a gang hit carried out by her son.
And if you thought this would be a heavily covered story… guess again (at least The New York Post put it on its cover).
Lackard’s son is an alleged gang member who has been arrested several times and has been shot twice. Her husband is a convicted heroin dealer.
According to authorities, Lackard participated in planning and executing the shooting along with her husband. The allegations go like this: the pair drove their Chrysler Pacifica to Bronx Criminal Court to pick up their son after a scheduled court appearance. After he got into the vehicle, they drove past rival gang members while her son fired several rounds out the rear window. Jennifer Lackard then drove from the scene while her son changed clothes to avoid being identified by passing police.
Lackard and her son were arrested shortly after the shooting. Her husband remained on the lam for several days before also being collared. Police reportedly recovered text messages among all three family members detailing the planning of the drive-by. The New York Post reported that Jennifer texted her son, “You can’t just sit directly outside. It has to be timed right.”
How did someone who would commit such an act get hired by a police department?
She is a social worker with no law enforcement background. She has a drug-dealing ex-con husband and a gangbanger son. She doesn’t even live in Mount Vernon, although we’re sure the officers working near her Bronx home wish she would move there.
Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard hired Jennifer Lackard in 2020 as Deputy Police Commissioner. She was tasked with overseeing police reform, “special initiatives,” community outreach, and wellness.
Lackard had literally zero police experience—except perhaps dealing with officers during the arrests of family members. She describes herself as a “community organizer” and “criminal justice advocate” with a background in prisoner re-entry and social services. She supposedly underwent a “rigorous background check.” We assume that included questions about criminal conduct and a willingness to uphold the law.
Lackard was fired immediately after her arrest on attempted murder and conspiracy charges.
Lackard and Arday, above, are just two more examples in a long list of DEI hiring gone bad. Now the institutions involved will have to work to restore their reputations. Further, future qualified candidates may be less willing to apply if these are the hiring practices they encounter. Who wants to work in an environment like that?
Institutions that continue extreme DEI hiring practices while remaining willfully blind to obvious candidate deficiencies risk creating a weaker workforce and encouraging the acceptance of mediocrity that is plaguing critical areas of our society.
There’s a reason many refer to DEI as “didn’t earn it.” The practice not only discredits the institutions that continue to adhere to it — it undermines faith in minorities of all stripes who rise in the ranks of these organizations.
Which isn’t fair — to anyone.
The company that hired my college friend made an honest mistake. These institutions are doing it on purpose, whether they admit it or not. That has to change, and the left will have to learn to live with it.
*****
Can A Microphone Be Racist?
The City of Cambridge, Massachusetts, has reached a deal with ShotSpotter’s parent company to reinstall its gunfire-detection technology on the streets of that historic city. The NYPD has used the technology for years, and it is generally agreed-upon as remarkably effective.
Cambridge is a wealthy city with plenty of money to spend on public safety. I wondered what took them so long to adopt the technology.
As it turns out, ShotSpotter isn’t new to Cambridge. The city had it for years but ended its contract in May 2026. It was brought back after a city public works employee was gunned down on his way to work on July 4. Xavier Bautista was found dead between two parked cars with two gunshot wounds. Several masked men allegedly approached and shot him to death. One suspect has been arrested, but if police had access to ShotSpotter, they might have located the victim sooner and rendered timely medical aid—or at least arrested the perpetrators at the scene.
If the system is effective, why did they get rid of it?
Apparently — you guessed it — it’s racist.
On May 18, 2026, just days after a deranged gunman randomly fired more than 50 rounds into city streets, the Cambridge City Council voted to scrap the system after 14 years of use, arguing the system was prejudiced against people of color.
Local activists and some council members argued that ShotSpotter endangered minorities by creating more interactions with police. While the technology can generate false positives, officers know that and still need reasonable suspicion before stopping anyone.
And when one considers that the majority of gunfire incidents are not even reported to police, Shotspotter — which operates like a super-microphone, picking up the sound of gunshots in real time and alerting police — is a vital tool in determining areas police should concentrate on.
None of this stopped the police science “experts” in the Cambridge City Council. Councilmember Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler, for instance, said ShotSpotter, “makes Cambridge less safe” and expressed concern that it contributes to over-policing in communities of color.
Other council members raised concerns that the company has a close relationship with the federal government and shares information with it—a clear nod to anti-ICE activists.
We’ve heard the same argument in liberal strongholds like Chicago, which also ended its contract with the company. What could possibly go wrong in a city where gun violence is one of its defining public safety problems?
Now a Cambridge employee is dead, and the same advocates have had to walk back their concerns about racist technology. Shotspotter makes streets safer, helps police respond faster, and should never have been discontinued.
When are these people going to wake up?
Likely, not until more of their fellow citizens cannot — because they’re dead.
NIGHTWATCH: A Conversation With Gordon Chang
The premier China analyst on a war that America may not realize it’s in
Gang, join us this week for a conversation with Gordon Chang, the premier analyst on the state of Sino-American relations and the rising threats the U.S. faces.
There’s an old saying in intel work: “it’s all one case.” Look hard enough, and the hand of the Chinese Communist Party appears behind most of the security challenges America faces. Drugs, fraud, intellectual property theft, border issues, COVID... we could go on. But does the West get it yet?
Gordon, who spent over 20 years working as an attorney inside China, has been ringing the bell on the subject for years now, through his media appearances, books, and journalism.
As he puts it: China considers itself at war with the U.S... But the U.S. doesn’t seem to realize it.
And why will next year be a pivotal one in China’s -- and perhaps America’s -- history?
Join us for a conversation with Gordon Chang... on tonight’s NIGHTWATCH.
(And for more from this brilliant man, catch Gordon’s reporting on X at @GordonGChang and at gordonchang.com ) (His latest book — Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America is also available HERE).
True Crime Girl: A Florida Boater Accused of Cutting A Teen Diver’s Oxygen!
In a one-of-a-kind case in our experience, a Florida boater has allegedly taken his love of lobster a bit too far — and is now facing a murder charge.
Michael Simpson, 51, a former boating safety task force member, is accused of swimming to and turning off an 18-year-old lobster diver’s floating oxygen supply while the teen was underwater. Simpson’s gripe was apparently that the teen was diving in Simpson’s favorite spot near Fisher Island during Florida’s “lobster mini-season” (during this two-day mini-season, recreational divers are allowed to harvest spiny lobsters before the regular commercial season begins).
The victim in the case, Hunter Coffer, was rescued by the dive boat’s captain, who dove into the water and dragged the disoriented teen safely to the surface. The teen was reportedly gasping for air. Investigators with the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office say Simpson swam back to his boat and left the scene before deputies arrived. His attorney counters that Simpson did not flee, saying he remained about 300 yards away with his boat idling and spoke with officers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission before departing.
But a problem for Simpson: other passengers aboard the victim’s dive boat captured photos and video of the incident and later shared them on social media. Investigators say those images became key pieces of evidence towards developing probable cause to arrest. Simpson was identified as the primary suspect after the images were circulated, and he later voluntarily surrendered to authorities. He has since been charged with attempted second-degree murder.
Our professional assessment: Dude! We know lobster is expensive, but allegedly turning off a fellow lobster lover’s oxygen supply is next-level cray-cray.
Additionally, Simpson was accompanied by his two sons during the incident, and they then joined him for an interview with Good Morning America this past Friday, during which he denied any wrongdoing and described the accusations as “devastating.” His attorney says Simpson intends to plead not guilty.
This one, we’ll be following.
And finally…
We’re checking in over at the NYC Mayor’s mansion again… and things aren’t going too smoothly….
Oh that Zohran…!
You raise an interesting point I had not considered.....the possibility that the plandemic was conceived and executed to isolate and deprive people of information for the purpose of "softening us up" so we would be more receptive to the introduction of communism and would actually vote for it. IMO this is the sort of "long game" the Chinese would play.
Arday and BHO share the fact that no one knows anything about them. No one was a classmate or teammate. Both became “ accomplished.” But school friends, teachers, coaches? Not a word.