Senate panel votes to hold Fauci in contempt
By: Zachary Schemele
USA Today
WASHINGTON - A Republican-led Senate committee voted August 6 [2026] to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal official who led the government's COVID-19 response in 2020, in contempt of Congress fro refusing to answer questions during a July 29 [2026] hearing.
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The panel advanced the resolution to the full chamber on an 8-5 vote, with two senators also voting no by proxy, to rebuke the infectious disease expert for asserting his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination during congressional testimony.
..... Over several contusion hours during the July 29 [2026] hearing the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Fauci was repeatedly pressured by Republican lawmakers to discuss a number of both professionally and personally sensitive issues, ranging from his actions as the country's top pandemic expert to his own revealing diary entires.
..... Fauci's stonewalling, pleading the Fifth more than 100 times, enraged Republicans, most notably committee chair Senator Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, who accused him of defying Congress.
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"The sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, quote, 'behind bars,'" Fauci told lawmakers. "Any reasonable persons who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion."
..... Paul has repeatedly advocated for the imprisonment of Fauci, a longtime political foe. Fauci stressed that it pained him to not answer senators' questions. He insisted he respected the legislative branch's authority and underlined his "decades-long record of cooperating with congress.
..... Before leaving office, former President Joe Biden issued a pardon to Fauci for any actions he took as a federal public health official between 2014 and 2025. That fact has prompted Paul and other Republicans to claim that Fauci is immune from concerns about self-incrimination, something Fauci's lawyers and Democrats dispute, and left a cloud of legal questions swirling around the political spectacle.
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"Do you incriminate yourself if you have a pardon?" Paul said "I think that question's for the courts."
..... Reuters reported that Paul believed Fauci's pardon nullified his Fifth Amendment claim.
..... As larger legislative battles age with the Senate about to leave town for August [2026] recess, it's not clear when, or if, the full chamber will ever take a vote on the contempt resolution. Paul also has the option, though, of sending his committee's criminal contempt referral directly to the Justice Department -a step he indicated he plans to take.
..... The office of Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, would review the referral if it proceeds and would decide whether to seek a grand jury indictment, Reuters reported.
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Fauci is also being investigated for his conduct during the pandemic by Louisiana, Florida and Alabama, Reuters reported. Were a state to charge him with a crime, the federal pardon would not apply.
..... Contributing" Reuters