1 of 2 | Anthony Fauci is facing the Senate Homeland Security Committee in a hearing discussing COVID-19 on Wednesday and he has invoked the Fifth Amendment for Chairman Sen. Rand Paul’s questions. File Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI | License Photo
July 29 (UPI) -- Anthony Fauci is facing the Senate Homeland Security Committee in a hearing discussing COVID-19 on Wednesday and he has invoked the Fifth Amendment for Chairman Sen. Rand Paul's questions.
Fauci preemptively invoked the Fifth Amendment during his opening statement on Wednesday, citing Paul's long history of calling for him to be jailed over the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The former White House medical adviser said he believes Paul called the hearing to lure him into making a false statement.
"The only conclusion I can reach is that 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, 'behind bars,'" Fauci said. "Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion. 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, under the advice of my attorneys I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions."
