Senate Committee Votes on Contempt Referral for Anthony Fauci After Fifth Amendment Invocations
A Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee vote is scheduled to determine whether to hold former top U.S. health official Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress. Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times during a hearing before the committee last week, declining to answer questions. Committee Chairman Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has said he intends to refer Fauci to the Justice Department following the contempt vote.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee scheduled a vote Thursday on whether to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress, following a hearing last week in which Fauci repeatedly declined to answer lawmakers' questions. According to the Washington Examiner, Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times, speaking only to deliver an opening statement in which he accused Sen. Rand Paul of having an "unhinged obsession" with prosecuting him and suggested the hearing was designed to cause him to make false statements under oath.
Paul has argued that Fauci had little justification for invoking the Fifth Amendment, given that President Biden issued Fauci a preemptive pardon in the final hours of his presidency covering conduct between 2014 and January 2025. Paul has maintained, according to the Washington Examiner, that while the pardon eliminates Fauci's exposure for pandemic-era actions, it does not shield him from criminal liability for statements made during current congressional testimony. The contempt referral process, as described by both the Washington Examiner and Reuters, bypasses a full Senate vote and sends the matter directly to the Justice Department.
In the days preceding the hearing, Paul released more than 1,000 pages of Fauci's government-stored private diary entries, according to NPR, which Paul used to scrutinize Fauci's role in the federal pandemic response and to allege that Fauci harbored private uncertainty about the origins of COVID-19.