Anthony Fauci, the 85-year-old retired health official who helped lead the U.S. government's response to the coronavirus pandemic, faces a contempt-of-Congress vote Thursday.
The punitive measure under consideration by the Republican-led Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee comes after he refused to answer lawmakers' questions in a hearing last week, citing his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination.
In an opening statement, Fauci said that the committee chairman, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has "an unhinged obsession" with him and suggested the hearing was convened in an attempt to trick Fauci into lying under oath.
"Therefore, although it pains me to do so because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress," Fauci said, "under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions."
Fauci told the committee he had answered many of their questions already during previous testimony.
Fauci, the United States' leading infectious disease expert during the pandemic, has long sparred with Paul over the origins of the pandemic. In the days leading up to last week's hearing, Paul released more than 1,000 pages of Fauci's private diary entries, pointing to them as evidence that he masked private uncertainty about what caused the pandemic.
During that hearing, Paul indicated that Fauci shouldn't be concerned about testifying, given his immunity from prosecution over pandemic-era conduct. That immunity stems from a pardon that Fauci received from President Joe Biden for conduct between 2014 and January 2025 — a pardon that the then-president described as "preemptive" given Republican scrutiny of Fauci.
The 2025 pardon wouldn't protect Fauci from any prosecution stemming from conduct after that date, including any remarks made during present-day congressional testimony.
If Republicans do vote to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress, the Justice Department will then decide whether to pursue a criminal prosecution. While prosecutions are rare, two former Trump advisers — Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro — were imprisoned on contempt-of-Congress charges during the Biden administration.
Many Democrats now see a similar risk for Fauci, pointing to the prosecution of other former government officials whom President Trump is critical of, including his former FBI director, James Comey.
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