WASHINGTON (Diya TV) — Dr. Anthony Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination Wednesday and repeatedly declined to answer questions during a contentious Senate hearing examining the federal response to COVID-19 and the origins of the virus.
Fauci appeared under subpoena before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases refused to answer more than 100 questions during the July 29 hearing, according to Reuters.
In his opening statement, Fauci accused Paul of conducting an “unhinged obsession with calling for my prosecution.”
Fauci said Paul’s public statements, repeated calls for criminal charges and recent publication of Fauci’s personal diary convinced him that the hearing was designed to create a new basis for prosecuting him.
“The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to prompt me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars,’” Fauci said, according to The Associated Press.
Fauci said he invoked the Fifth Amendment on the advice of his attorneys. Exercising the constitutional right does not establish guilt or prove that a person committed a crime.
Paul argued that Fauci should answer the committee’s questions because former President Joe Biden issued him a preemptive pardon before leaving office in January 2025. Biden said the pardon was intended to protect Fauci from what he described as unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions connected to Fauci’s government service.
The pardon covers conduct that occurred before it was issued but would not necessarily protect Fauci from allegations involving statements made afterward, including potential accusations of lying to Congress. Fauci’s attorneys said Paul was attempting to place him at risk of a new prosecution despite the earlier pardon.
Paul disputed Fauci’s justification for remaining silent and announced that the committee would vote next week on whether to hold him in contempt of Congress.
The hearing became increasingly heated as Republican senators questioned Fauci about the origins of COVID-19, pandemic restrictions, federal research funding and statements he previously made to Congress.
Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment even when Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., asked basic questions about the day of the week and the color of Fauci’s tie. Hawley said he posed the questions to challenge Fauci’s claim that every response could expose him to prosecution.
Paul also ordered security officers to remove Fauci’s attorney, David Schertler, after the lawyer repeatedly attempted to speak during the hearing. Paul said the committee had called Fauci to testify, not his legal counsel.
Schertler later described Paul’s investigation as an “obsessive vendetta” and called the allegations against Fauci false and disgraceful. He said Fauci’s legal team would examine its options following the hearing.
Paul has accused Fauci of misleading Congress about whether the National Institutes of Health funded gain-of-function research involving bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He has also accused Fauci and other officials of attempting to suppress discussion of a possible laboratory origin for the pandemic.
Fauci has denied lying to Congress or concealing information about the virus’s origins. He has said the research funded by the National Institutes of Health did not meet the federal definition of especially risky gain-of-function experimentation and could not have produced SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
The dispute intensified after Paul released more than 1,000 pages from Fauci’s pandemic-era diary. Paul argued that some entries showed differences between Fauci’s private discussions and his public statements about the virus’s possible origins.
Fauci and his supporters said the entries reflected the uncertainty scientists faced during the early stages of the pandemic, when researchers were still gathering evidence about how the virus emerged and spread.
Democratic senators defended Fauci during the hearing and accused Republicans of conducting a politically motivated attempt to punish a longtime public health official. Republican members said Fauci’s refusal to answer prevented Congress and the public from obtaining accountability over pandemic-era decisions and federal research funding.
Scientists continue to debate whether the virus emerged through natural animal-to-human transmission or a laboratory-related incident. No publicly available evidence has definitively established either explanation.
Fauci led NIAID from 1984 until his retirement in 2022 and advised seven presidents on infectious diseases. He became one of the most visible officials in the federal government during the COVID-19 pandemic.
