Of all the people I expected to hear weighing in on Anthony Fauci last week, Aaron Rodgers wasn’t high on the list.

Then again, maybe he should have been.

The Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback appeared on The Pat McAfee Show Monday and unloaded on the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

“You got a pardon and you pleaded over 100 times?” Rodgers asked. “What are you scared of, Tony?”

There’s some history here.

Rodgers famously refused the COVID-19 vaccine during the 2021 NFL season. He initially told reporters he was “immunized,” later acknowledging he was unvaccinated and had misled people about his status.

At the time, unvaccinated NFL players faced daily testing and additional masking and distancing requirements. Rodgers eventually tested positive, missed a game and was fined $14,650 for violating league protocols.

So when Fauci returned to Capitol Hill on July 29, Rodgers was paying attention.

And Fauci’s attorney wasn’t impressed.

“Aaron Rodgers doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” attorney David Schertler told The Athletic. “He should stick to football.”

Your Rundown for Monday, August 10, 2026...

The Multi-Million-Dollar Footnote

Contributing editor Emily Clancy previewed Fauci’s testimony for The Rundown the morning he appeared before Congress, explaining why the hearing could be different from his previous appearances before Congress.

Turns out, it was.

Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment 111 times, declining to answer questions from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee about COVID’s origins, federal research funding and his pandemic-era conduct.

His position was straightforward: Despite former President Biden’s sweeping pardon, Fauci and his attorneys argued that answering questions could expose him to legal jeopardy outside the pardon’s protection.

Fauci has denied wrongdoing and characterized the proceeding as an attempt to maneuver him into committing a new offense.

Then things got stranger.

One of Fauci’s attorneys, Schertler, repeatedly attempted to interject during questioning. Committee Chairman Rand Paul told him he wasn’t recognized and ultimately directed security to remove him from the hearing room.

Yes, Fauci’s lawyer was really escorted out.

Fauci wasn’t left without representation. Paul noted that several other attorneys accompanying him remained in the room.

And Paul warned that Fauci’s refusal to answer would have consequences.

Last Thursday, he followed through.

The Homeland Security Committee voted 8–5 along party lines to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress and refer the matter to the Justice Department, with all eight Republicans backing the resolution and all five Democrats opposing it.

Fauci’s lawyers countered that the pardon doesn’t eliminate every conceivable source of criminal exposure — including potential state charges — and therefore doesn’t necessarily extinguish his constitutional privilege.

That dispute is far from settled.

The contempt referral itself is unusual. As The Wall Street Journal notes, the committee is attempting to send the matter directly to the Justice Department rather than first securing a contempt vote from the full Senate.

Whether the DOJ prosecutes Fauci — and whether such a prosecution survives the inevitable legal challenges — remains to be seen.

But while Fauci said very little at the hearing, documents released around it have done plenty of talking.

“Fauci’s diary entries, in fact, reveal that he was more concerned with receiving cash awards and becoming a media personality than he was with saving lives,” says Paradigm’s macro expert Jim Rickards.

Take the $1 million Dan David Prize.

In 2020, immunologist Charles Dinarello nominated Fauci for the award. Emails released by Paul’s committee indicate Fauci’s own staff helped prepare the nomination materials. After submitting them, Dinarello thanked Fauci and his chief of staff for doing “most of the work.”

Fauci won.

Dinarello later received roughly $1.8 million in NIAID research funding, according to federal grant records cited by the Washington Examiner. But the relationship went back decades: Dinarello had received NIAID funding long before the prize nomination.

Another scientist, Duke immunologist Barton Haynes, nominated Fauci for major prizes after years of receiving NIAID support.

Emails show Fauci suggesting awards for which Haynes might nominate him and offering to supply the necessary materials. Haynes subsequently received substantial NIAID research funding — but again, he had been an NIAID grantee long before those nominations.

The records do not prove Fauci traded federal grants for personal awards. There’s no documented agreement saying, in effect, you nominate me and I’ll fund you.

But they reveal a remarkably cozy ecosystem.

The director of one of America’s most powerful research-funding agencies sought lucrative prizes with help from scientists whose work depended, in part, on funding from that same agency.

Federal ethics officials apparently recognized some of the danger. In other cases involving Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech awards, NIAID ethics counsel determined Fauci could accept the honors but not their cash prizes because the sponsoring institutions were NIAID grantees.

And the scrutiny is expanding.

What started as another Rand Paul–Anthony Fauci confrontation has now produced a contempt referral, new questions about Fauci’s financial relationships and continuing disputes over the reach of Biden’s pardon.

Rodgers called Fauci a criminal. Fauci’s defenders call the congressional investigation political persecution.

Neither side gets to decide the legal question.

That belongs to the Justice Department — and, potentially, the courts.

But after 111 invocations of the Fifth Amendment, one thing is certain:

Anthony Fauci’s congressional testimony didn’t end the story. It opened another chapter.

Market Rundown for Monday, August 10, 2026

S&P 500 futures are at 7,780.

Oil is up 1.60% to $79.45 for a barrel of WTI.

Gold’s down 0.25% to $4,387.50 per ounce.

And Bitcoin is down 0.25% to $64,990.