Fauci held in contempt by Rand Paul's committee

Dr. Anthony Fauci was held in contempt of Congress by a committee vote for inappropriately invoking his constitutional right against self-incrimination during a hearing on his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee voted 8 to 5 Thursday morning to certify a contempt resolution filed by committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-KY) following Fauci’s refusal to testify on July 29. Paul is now expected to refer Fauci to the Department of Justice for prosecution.Fauci, the former 43-year director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had received a blanket pardon from former President Joe Biden, covering any possible crimes from 2014 to 2025.

Republicans argue Fauci’s acceptance of the pardon meant that he had a responsibility to answer the committee’s questions during the high-profile hearing last week. Fauci, 85, only participated in the hearing following a subpoena for his testimony. He pleaded his Fifth Amendment right to silence more than 100 times during the hearing and only spoke to deliver his opening statement, during which he accused Paul of having an “obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution.” Paul said in his opening statement Thursday that the committee is only voting on criminal contempt charges, not Fauci’s actions during the pandemic.“That is what we are voting on today, not his opinions, not his policies, not anything he said from a podium six years ago,” Paul said. “We are voting on whether a witness who has received the benefit of a sweeping federal pardon can be ordered by this committee to answer questions and then defy that order without consequence.”Paul told the Washington Examiner earlier this week that he plans to send the contempt charge recommendation directly to the DOJ, effectively sidestepping a vote before the entire Senate on whether Fauci inappropriately invoked his Fifth Amendment rights.A full Senate vote would likely be blocked by Democrats via a filibuster. “It’s a referral. It’s a recommendation,” Paul said on Tuesday. “So we’ll send it directly from the committee, but then we’ll also talk to leadership and at some point in time see if they want to vote on it.” Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), the leading Democrat on the committee, called Paul’s intention to refer directly to the DOJ a “dangerous and wildly unprecedented move.”“No individual senator, senator, and no committee speaks for the entire Senate as a whole,” said Peters. “The Senate’s institutional powers belong to the full body. Allowing one chairman to unilaterally assert those powers would invite future chairs in both parties to bypass the Senate whenever they cannot secure the support of their colleagues.”Democrats made five motions that would have postponed the vote but were rebuffed by Republicans after debate over the legitimacy of Fauci’s decision to plead the Fifth.Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) accused Paul and Republicans on the committee of setting up a legal trap for Fauci that would not be protected by Biden’s pardon.“The goal was to wait for Dr. Fauci to make any kind of misstatement, and then have a weaponized Department of Justice file criminal charges for that new statement that would not have been covered by the pardon, leaving Dr. Fauci little choice but to invoke his constitutional right to not walk directly into a trap,” Hassan said.Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), citing Supreme Court precedent, said Fauci’s refusal to answer basic questions of a non-incriminating nature, such as what day of the week it was and what color his tie was, “betrays the fact that his invocation of the Fifth Amendment wasn’t tailored” to any alleged crimes.“It was a predetermined, premeditated design to evade this committee’s questions on any subject, including emphatically those for which he has a pardon,” Hawley said.Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-NY) cited the same Supreme Court precedent and said the legal standard of invoking the Fifth Amendment is a “reasonable fear” of prosecution, including at the state level.Three states — Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida — are investigating Fauci for criminal charges for his conduct during the pandemic. The preemptive pardon only protects Fauci from federal prosecution.“This right is so fundamental that we ought to seriously consider before we take this immensely historic step and hear from his counsel as to what he feared,” Blumenthal said.This is a breaking story and will be updated. Senate reporter Ramsey Touchberry contributed to this report.