It has taken the Trump administration just eighteen months to turn a seasonal stomach bug into a national epidemic.

Cyclospora, the food borne parasite that causes severe diarrhea, has infected an estimated 18,000 Americans so far this summer—more than six times the number of cases the U.S. typically experiences over a full year.

This surge in case counts represents the largest recorded outbreak of Cyclosporiasis in U.S. history. As of writing, it has led to more than 400 hospitalizations across 45 states. Worse still, Michigan recorded its first two Cyclospora-related deaths earlier this week.

With all this in mind, it makes sense that the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee recently spent nearly three hours grilling a health official over their response to a disease outbreak…

…until you realize that the topic of discussion was COVID-19 rather than Cyclosporiasis.

On July 29, Congressional Republicans called an oversight hearing to do something they’ve done many times before: ask Dr. Anthony Fauci to explain, once again, where COVID-19 came from.

These COVID-origins hearings have now run for years, generated multiple staff reports from both parties, and reliably produce the same result:

Republicans accuse Fauci of a cover-up,

Democrats call the exercise theater,

Everyone goes home having learned nothing they didn’t already believe going in.

This most recent hearing was no different. Chairman Rand Paul (R-KY) subpoenaed Fauci and the 85-year-old retired scientist, more than three years removed from federal service, declined to answer questions. The only notable part about this go-round was that Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right more than a hundred times to avoid responding.

On Thursday, the committee voted—along strict party lines—to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress over his recent testimony.

COVID-19 origin hearings have established themselves a predictable, low-yield use of oversight capacity. That makes it worth asking: why are Republicans calling attention to the issue now?

Oversight hearings involve real and finite resources including a Senate committee’s subpoena power, its staff’s investigative time, and a chair’s agenda-setting authority. To have that congressional attention wasted on an issue both sides have already litigated to exhaustion is revealing—especially when juxtaposed with the fact that not a single Republican has subpoenaed anyone over a historic outbreak that continues to spread with no real end in sight.

The Food and Drug Administration’s current acting commissioner Kyle Diamantas could have easily replaced Fauci in the hot seat. Not just for the........

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