1 of 3 | Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress on Thursday. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
Aug. 6 (UPI) -- Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress on Thursday.
The vote was held after Fauci exercised his Fifth Amendment right during a Senate committee hearing last week. With the vote, the committee can refer its resolution to the Justice Department or to a vote from the full Senate.
"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," Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., chairman of the committee, said in his opening statement Thursday.
Fauci pleaded the Fifth, citing Paul's longtime desire to see him prosecuted for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last week, Paul released a series of journal entries Fauci wrote while serving as chief medical adviser to President Donald Trump during the pandemic in 2020.
