Fauci invokes 5th at contentious hearing
GOP challenges legacy as Democrats push back
By: Bart Jansen
Josy Garrison
and Erin Mansfield
USA Today
WASHINGTON - Dr. Anthony Fauci may be held in contempt after refusing to answer Republicans' questions about the origins of COVID-19 as he sat in a witness chair invoking the Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
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The former head of the National Institute of allergy and Infectious Disease under seven presidents appeared under subpoena July 29 [2026] before the Senate committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.
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Over and over, Fauci repeated, "On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my right under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution."
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The hearing became so tense that Senior Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the committee and who for years has accused Fauci of covering up the origin of the coronavirus, had one of Fauci's lawyer ejected form the room for sitting next to him at the witness table.
..... Paul said a senate panel will hold a vote next week on whether to hold Fauci in contempt. He said Fauci should have testified because President Joe Biden issued him a preemptive pardon.
..... "It's against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress," Paul said. "there will be repercussions."
..... Fauci, now 85, was the public face of the federal government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He retired from federal government work at the end of 2022. Paul has said if Fauci perjures himself, the pardon for past actions won't protect him.
..... Reading form a one-page statement at the start of the hearing, Fauci said that he would be invoking his Fifth Amendment right because the hearing had one purpose: to entrap him into saying something that could potentially be used against him in court.
..... He said Paul had an "unhinged obsession" with prosecuting him. He citied "repeated slanderous comments about me" and Paul's recent release of Fauci's diary "aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me."
..... "The only occlusion I can reach is that the reason he is calling me before the committee is to get me to say something - anything - that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, 'behind bars,'" Fauci said.
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Paul said he denied Fauci's assertion of privilege and directed him to answer questions anyway.
..... Paul said the funding for experimental research at the lab was "one of the worst public health decisions" in history and said Fauci needed to "come clean" and ask forgiveness form the American people who suffered as the coronavirus spread to pandemic proportions.
..... He peppered Fauci with questions about mpox research, the possible CIA transfer of funds to his agency and research into how avian flu jumped to mammals. Paul focused on whether the benefits of the research into how viruses are spread were worth the risk.
..... Republicans on the committee used the hearing to air some of their long-held claims about him and his medical advice to Americans, using Fauci's Fifth Amendment strategy in an attempt to shame the infectious disease expert.
..... "We have entire generators of Americans who, rightfully so, do not trust our institutions to keep them safe because of you," Santor Rick Scott of Florida told Fauci. "This has destroyed decades of progress and lifetimes of work because you wanted to fuel your own ego and be the center of attention."
..... "In hindsight, are you disappointed how you handled COVID? Do you have nay regrets?" Scott asked in another exchange.
..... Fauci gave his standard answer.
..... "Your legacy will not be as a man who has saved America from COVID, but as a man who destroyed the public trust in American's public health institutions in exchange for five minutes of fame," Scott said. "This is how story will remember you."
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Senator Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, began with, "Nothing says honestly like taking the Fifth, huh, doc?"
..... He then mocked Fauci's strategy by asking him a series of basic, factual questions about the day of the week and the color of he carpet.
..... To each, Fauci said, "On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my right under the Pith Amendment to the Constitution.
..... Hawley accused Fauci of violating the law and said he's "done more to harm science than anybody in my lifetime."
..... "I hope you'll go home and write that in your diary," he added.
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Several Democratic senators came to Fauci's defense, Santor Maggie Hassan, D-New Hampshire, thanked Fauci for more than 50 years of federal government service and said, "It must be enormously frustrating to know that this hearing is designed to entrap you."
..... She lamented the spread of public health crisis such as measles and cyclosporiasis.
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Santor Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, said the COVID-19 pandemic was one of the darkest times in U.S. history and suggested the hearing was part of the Trump administration's effort to rewrite the harlotry of a pandemic.
..... The Trump administration launched baseless smears against vaccines that pulled the country out of the crisis that killed 1 million Americna and 15 million people worldwide, Blumenthal said. Fauci spent decades in federal government helping "conquer" COVID-19, HIV, Swine flu, Zika Ebola and other epidemics, he said.
..... "For the past 18 months, the Trump administration has been engaged in a campaign to rewrite this history," Blumenthal said. "Today's [07/29/2026] proceedings, I fear, is part of that effort, one of the darkest days in our Senate's history."
..... After roughly three hours of questioning, Paul closed the hearsing by arguing that Fauci abuse his power at the national Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and helped fund research that led to "the largest man-made plague in human history."
..... Fauci was then escorted out by police, waling past reporters shouting inquisitions in the hallway without answering. he may face a similar panel in the House. As the hearing ended, Representative James Comer, R-Kentucky, chair of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, threated to subpoena Fauci as well.
..... Contributing: Zac Anderson, USA Today