Fauci invokes Fifth Amendment in Senate hearing on pandemic handling

Dr. Anthony Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination on Wednesday, refusing to answer questions from senators during a Republican-led committee hearing. The hearing focused on his management of the COVID-19 pandemic and has injected fresh drama into the ongoing conflict between Fauci and Republican lawmakers.

Fauci's decision to invoke the Fifth Amendment came after he was subpoenaed by Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. Paul has long had a contentious relationship with the now-retired infectious-disease expert and has been a leading voice in demanding Fauci testify under oath about his role in pandemic containment. Fauci stated that he was acting on his attorney's advice, expressing that it pained him to do so.

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The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this Committee is to prompt me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars.’

In his opening statement, Fauci accused Paul of an "obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution." He suggested that Paul's sole reason for summoning him was to elicit a statement that could justify his public vows to see Fauci "behind bars." This invocation of the Fifth Amendment sidesteps immediate calls for prosecution if Fauci were to lie, but it is likely to further intensify partisan divisions over the pandemic's origins and handling.

Leading up to the hearing, Senator Paul released over 1,000 pages of Fauci's personal diaries from the pandemic years. Paul highlighted certain notes regarding early efforts to understand the virus's emergence, claiming on social media that Fauci's private writings and public statements presented "two different stories." Some diary entries, reflecting Fauci's early uncertainties as scientists globally worked to understand the novel virus, have previously appeared in his 2024 memoir and interviews. However, these entries have drawn renewed attention from those who blame Fauci for policies like mask mandates and school closures, which they believe infringed on personal liberties during a period of hundreds of thousands of deaths.

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what Fauci wrote privately and what he told the country are two different stories.