Politics
Dr. Anthony Fauci Pleads the Fifth More Than 100 Times During Senate Hearing
Dr. Anthony Fauci didn’t have much to say during his Senate hearing on Wednesday, July 29.
The former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) invoked his Fifth Amendment right more than 100 times while being questioned by Sen. Rand Paul and other congressmen.
“Although it pains me to do so, because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government and my decadeslong 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,” Fauci, 85, said Wednesday, before repeating the latter part more than 100 times.
Fauci — who served as the White House Chief Medical Advisor under President Joe Biden — was being questioned about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic and the government’s response to the spread.
Before leaving office in January 2025, Biden, 83, issued Fauci a preemptive federal pardon covering January 1, 2014, through January 19, 2025.
The GOP Senator from Kentucky accused Fauci of lying to Congress and withholding information from the American people, parroting an unverified claim that COVID-19 originated in a lab.
“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 said of Paul in his opening remarks. “Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion.”
More than 1.2 million Americans died as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, making it the deadliest public health disaster in modern U.S. history.
