The US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs will vote next week on whether to hold Anthony Fauci, one of the world’s leading infectious disease experts, in contempt for his refusal to answer questions at a hearing on 29 July. He attended under a subpoena issued last month by the committee’s Republican chairman Rand Paul.
The 85-year-old Fauci, who helped guide the US response to the Covid‑19 pandemic, is being accused of manipulating intelligence on the origins of the pandemic and lying to Congress to cover up alleged wrongdoing by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) related to funding of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. Fauci, who directed the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 38 years under seven different administrations and retired in December 2022, denies all these charges.
The day before Fauci’s hearing, more than 150 scientists, physicians and public health experts signed an open letter urging elected representatives in Congress to end what they described as ‘the ongoing vilification and harassment of many American scientists’, saying it has led to a five-year period of harassment and threats of violence directed at Fauci and his family. The letter’s authors assert that ‘no credible evidence’ has been produced to support allegations against Fauci.
David Morens, a former senior adviser to Fauci, was indicted in April on criminal charges of, among other things, hiding the origins of Covid-19. The prosecution was denounced as politically motivated by senior scientific leaders.
During the three-hour-long hearing, some estimates indicate that Fauci invoked his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination under the US Constitution about 100 times. Fauci did note, however, that he has appeared multiple times for congressional hearings during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Fauci told the committee that, ‘given Senator Paul’s obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me … the only conclusion that I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something – anything – that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, “behind bars”’. Therefore, Fauci said he would please the fifth amendment and refrain from answering the senators’ questions.
But Rand and other Republicans on the committee argued that Fauci is prohibited from invoking the fifth amendment because former President Biden granted him a ‘full and unconditional’ pardon in January 2025 before leaving office.
The next step will be for Rand’s committee to vote to approve the contempt resolution and, if passed, then it would need a Senate majority in a vote. Such an official approval would mean that Fauci could face a criminal fine and imprisonment of up to 12 months, or a civil lawsuit.
At the hearing, the committee’s top Democrat, Gary Peters, argued that the Trump administration is weakening the government’s ability to respond to public health emergencies and pandemics. ‘They have hollowed out the public health workforce; they have fired, pushed out and cut funding for public health personnel – shrinking the [US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] workforce by a quarter,’ Peters stated. He added that thousands of experienced scientific experts have left government service during the current administration, taking with them critical institutional knowledge.
Peters and others also warned that Paul’s hearing and other public attacks on Fauci will likely deter other scientific experts from public service. ‘These attacks upon Dr Fauci are not just about him, it is sending signals to others who are thinking about serving our country – our scientists, our doctors, our healthcare professionals, our researchers – trying to show to them that if you don’t get in line with the politics that you will also potentially be subject to attacks.’
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