Fauci invokes Fifth Amendment, refuses to answer Senate questions on COVID-19 origins

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the face of the U.S. pandemic response, refused to answer any questions during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on Wednesday, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The 85-year-old former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases appeared under subpoena, facing an inquiry led by Republican Senator Rand Paul into the origins of COVID-19 and Fauci's management of the crisis.

A combative opening

Fauci used his opening statement to denounce Paul's motives, saying the senator had an "unhinged obsession" with prosecuting him. He argued that the hearing was designed solely to extract a statement that could justify Paul's repeated public pledges to see him "behind bars."

The only conclusion 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.'

Fauci noted he had testified before Congress more than 200 times during his 38-year tenure, but said the release of his unredacted personal diary and Paul's "slanderous comments" left him no choice but to follow his attorneys' advice and remain silent.

Lawyer ejected, repercussions threatened

The hearing grew tense when Fauci's lawyer, David Schertler, attempted to interject after Paul warned of consequences for the refusal to testify. Paul ordered a security officer to remove Schertler, telling him, "Another word and you're gone."

Paul then threatened further action. "The committee will have to consider after this hearing what appropriate action should be taken against you for the failure to testify after being directed to do so," he said. "It's against the law to obstruct an investigation of congress. There will be repercussions to your refusal to testify today."

The diary at the center of the clash

Paul released the document himself over the weekend, more than 1,100 pages of typewritten entries covering 2019 to 2022, without saying how he had obtained them. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Tuesday that he had passed the papers to Paul and to Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin so they could "see the light of day", and disputed that they were personal journals at all, calling them government records created on a government computer. The entries offer a window into Fauci's mindset during the pandemic. In an entry dated 21 May 2020, written after a flattering front-page profile of him in the Washington Post, he described his national and international fame as explosive and really unimaginable, and said it was no exaggeration to call himself the most famous and most talked-about person in the country and one of the most recognisable in the world.

Other entries about then-President Donald Trump, whom Fauci advised closely in the early days of the pandemic, call him "rambling", "crazy", "desperate", "bumbling", "incompetent", "an idiot", "a true embarrassment", "totally nuts" and "truly an obnoxious adolescent", though some passages offer a more positive view. Republicans focused on a January 2020 note in which Fauci wrote that the Wuhan animal market "was not the source, but the amplifier" of the outbreak, a point they cite to bolster the lab-leak theory that Fauci and many virologists consider unlikely.

A pardon and lingering legal exposure

Before leaving office, President Joe Biden granted Fauci a preemptive "full and unconditional" pardon on January 19, 2025, covering actions dating back to 2014. Despite that shield, several Republicans have argued Fauci could still face perjury charges if he were to lie under oath. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine sceptic, was among those raising that possibility this week.

Paul, an ophthalmologist by training, used the hearing to lay out his own narrative, asking detailed questions about NIH funding of Chinese research and virus mutations while Fauci repeated the same response: "On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment."

What comes next

Paul has previously referred Fauci to the Justice Department for prosecution, and he signaled that the committee will weigh further steps. Fauci, who retired in 2022 after serving seven presidents, left the hearing without answering any substantive questions, deepening a years-long feud that shows no sign of abating.