The invocation of the Fifth Amendment was unsupported because questions were aimed at a period of time covered by a pardon, the resolution says.
A resolution the Senate is scheduled to vote on this week states that Dr. Anthony Fauci’s repeated invocation of the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during Congressional testimony did not apply because the conduct he was questioned about occurred during time covered by a preemptive pardon given to Fauci in 2025 by outgoing President Joe Biden.
Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022, read an opening statement during the July 29 hearing before saying, in answer to every single question, he was invoking the Fifth Amendment.
Even after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), chairman of the panel before which Fauci appeared, told Fauci the amendment did not apply both because of the pardon, and because he read a statement, Fauci declined to answer questions.
The resolution states that the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee resolves that Fauci violated federal law that prohibits people who are subpoenaed by Congress from “refus[ing] to answer any question pertinent to the question under inquiry.” It recommends to federal prosecutors that they charge Fauci.
“Dr. Fauci appeared under subpoena and invoked the Fifth Amendment to refuse answering questions. During the hearing, I ruled that the Fifth Amendment did not apply because of the pardon, and that Fauci had waived any remaining privilege by giving opening testimony. I ordered him to answer and warned him about contempt, yet he still refused,” Paul said in a statement. “That is obstruction of a congressional investigation. The Committee will act accordingly.”
The panel, which had been slated to consider the matter on Wednesday, will now take it up on Thursday morning.
Fauci’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication.
Paul at the start of the hearing said that the American people deserved answers on why Fauci wrote certain statements in his diary—which Paul recently released after obtaining it from the Department of Health and Human Services—and took different stances in public, including writing in the diary that he convinced multiple officials to close schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, while saying publicly he was never involved in school closures.
Fauci in his diary also expressed doubts about the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, which were not reflected in his public statements.
“Your own words demonstrate that you understood the influence you exercised,” Paul said.
During his opening statement, Fauci said that he had testified to Congress on a number of occasions but due to Paul’s “obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary,” he believed that Paul wanted to get Fauci to say something that would lead to criminal charges.
“Therefore, although it pains me to do so because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government, and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress, under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions,” he said.
The questions during the hearing largely came from Republicans, with Democrats repeatedly praising Fauci.
“We are here in an attempt to entrap you because you had a distinguished career trying to put Americans public health first,” Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) said.
