Over the last two days, the release of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails has lit the internet on fire. While the mainstream media have sought to bury the revelations and paint Fauci as a misunderstood hero, right-leaning outlets have been hard at work mining for information, exposing numerous, scandalous admissions.

As RedState reported, Fauci ignored warnings that COVID-19 looked engineered and was thanked by a funder of the Wuhan lab for dismissing the lab leak theory publicly. Fauci was also admitting privately that masks don’t work, even as he claimed that he only said that publicly to protect PPE stocks. And while no political figure was more vindicated after the release than Sen. Rand Paul, there’s another politician who managed to make herself look even worse.

And she didn’t even have to say anything new to do it.

Dr. Fauci is one of the finest public servants we have ever had. He is not a partisan. His only interest is saving lives. We need his expertise and his judgment to defeat this virus. All Americans should be thanking him. Every day.

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) May 13, 2020

I know what you are thinking. It is absolutely shocking that Cheney would once again be on the wrong side of an absolutely awful take. After all, this is the same person who spread the fake Russian bounties story uncritically and then doubled down, basically going with a “fake but accurate” defense.

Cheney’s commentary on Fauci mirrored what we heard from far too many Republicans last year. Just like with Robert Mueller, establishment GOP members have a tendency to bow before any bureaucrat, past or present, in an attempt to seem fair. It flies in the face of conservatism’s ostensibly ingrained suspicion of government. Why would anyone reflexively trust someone like Fauci? He was a disaster during the AIDS epidemic and was essentially a mediocre careerist until COVID-19 showed up. His thirst for fame should have been a tip-off to everyone that the guy wasn’t going to “follow the science.” Regardless, while many in the GOP have amended their opinions on Fauci, Cheney hasn’t done so in any capacity.

What this confirms is that Republicans were 100% correct to toss her out of leadership. If the number three Republican in the House can’t even be counted on to ask tough questions of someone like Fauci and hold him to account, they aren’t good for anything. No Republican should ever defend the bureaucracy as if it’s sacrosanct. That’s spitting on the core values of the conservative movement. When almost all federal employees in Washington, D.C., lean left, you have to always assume you are dealing with a partisan Democrat. That Cheney didn’t do that, instead choosing to cast shade at her own party for asking questions, she disqualified herself from leadership.

What Fauci’s emails reveal is that he is an egomaniacal fraud. Further, they reveal that a lot of supposedly “smart” politicians, including Liz Cheney, have absolutely awful judgment.