By now in American politics, we’ve become accustomed to high-profile figures pleading the Fifth to avoid answering questions they believe could be used to incriminate them. That includes President Donald Trump doing it more than 400 times in a civil case in 2022.
But when it comes to Dr. Anthony Fauci invoking the Fifth Amendment — as he did repeatedly in Senate testimony Wednesday — it’s much more complicated.
That’s because Fauci was pardoned last year by then-President Joe Biden.
Indeed, Wednesday’s hearing is very unlikely to be the end of the story. And it could actually grease the skids for Republicans and the Trump administration to do something many of them have openly floated: Trying to put Fauci in prison.
They’re ostensibly not trying to prosecute Fauci for what he did during the Covid pandemic, but have talked about holding him in contempt of Congress — a threat to initiate a process that would result in the Justice Department considering whether to charge him.
