‘All He Had to Do Was Tell the Truth’: Senate Committee Votes to Hold Fauci in Contempt of Congress

The Senate committee investigating Dr. Anthony Fauci voted Thursday morning to advance a contempt of Congress citation against him.

Last week, Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, invoked the Fifth Amendment 111 times before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee regarding questions about the government’s response to COVID-19.

“All he had to do was tell the truth more than 100 times. Though he refused,” said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the committee chairman. “The chair ruled that Dr. Fauci’s assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege was unsupported in light of the pardon and the testimony he offered in his opening statement.”

The committee will send the referral to the Justice Department, which could use that contempt citation to prosecute Fauci.

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., the committee’s ranking member, complained that the investigation of Fauci has been partisan.

“The chairman is now asking the committee to take a vote that could harm our ability to conduct future investigations, and disregards constitutional protections long recognized by the U.S. Senate without making a reliable case that there is a legal basis for holding Dr. Fauci in contempt,” Peters said.

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., on Thursday defended the investigation against criticism from Democrat panel members, saying it has been transparent. He added that the President Joe Biden’s sweeping pardon of Fauci for actions taken from 2014 to early 2025 means that Fauci would not have incriminated himself by answering panel members’ questions about the pandemic.

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., stated on X after the vote that Fauci “MUST be held accountable.”

“When Congress sought answers, Fauci refused to answer. He misled Congress and the American people, cost countless lives and livelihoods, and was obsessed with protecting his own popularity rather than telling the truth,” Scott stated.

During his testimony last week, Fauci repeatedly said, “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.”

Ahead of the testimony, the committee had released excerpts of Fauci’s diary on the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which was stored on a government computer. In one of the entries, Fauci said that a wet market in Wuhan, China “was not the source, but the amplifier” of the virus.

During an opening statement before questions in the hearing last week, Fauci said the release of the dirary was “aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me.”

Fauci also accused Paul of a vendetta, saying, “The sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars.’” 

On Thursday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., noted that three state attorneys general have said they would investigate Fauci. Blumenthal argued that Fauci had the reason to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights despite receiving the presidential pardon. The states of Florida, Louisiana, and Alabama announced plans to investigate Fauci following his Senate testimony.

Fauci, who retired at the end of 2022 after 38 years directing the NIAID, repeatedly has said the United States never funded gain-of-function research projects at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, suspected to be the source of COVID-19. He also has insisted that he never misled Congress on issues related to the origin of the virus.

Two allies of President Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, were convicted of contempt of Congress for not cooperating with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol protest. Both served four months in federal prison.