{"id":5770,"date":"2026-07-29T15:08:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T15:08:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5770"},"modified":"2026-07-29T15:08:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T15:08:32","slug":"fauci-invokes-the-fifth-amendment-and-declines-to-testify-in-gop-led-senate-panels-covid-19-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5770","title":{"rendered":"Fauci invokes the Fifth Amendment and declines to testify in GOP-led Senate panel\u2019s COVID-19 hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By LAURAN NEERGAARD and ALI SWENSON, Associated Press<\/strong><\/p>\n

WASHINGTON\u00a0 \u2014 Dr. Anthony Fauci on Wednesday invoked the Fifth Amendment and declined to answer questions from senators in a Republican-led committee hearing about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

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The move injects new drama into the lingering tensions between Fauci and Republican lawmakers over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and accusations he lied about the origins of COVID-19, which he denies.<\/p>\n

Fauci was set to answer lawmakers\u2019 questions after being subpoenaed by Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has long had a fraught relationship with the now-retired infectious-disease expert and led the charge seeking that he testify, again, under oath.<\/p>\n

Fauci\u2019s decision to invoke the Fifth, at least for now, sidesteps calls for his prosecution if he is accused of lying at Wednesday\u2019s hearing, part of a yearslong campaign for his arrest spearheaded by some Republicans in Congress. Though he received a presidential pardon from Democrat Joe Biden, some of Fauci\u2019s critics have suggested he could still face charges if he perjures himself under oath.<\/p>\n

His refusal to answer questions may also further inflame partisan divides that have festered for years about the origins and handling of the pandemic, which was declared by the World Health Organization in March 2020.<\/p>\n

Fauci, who helped lead the nation\u2019s COVID-19 response, has long been a target of those frustrations. But to his supporters he is an emblem of sound scientific expertise.<\/p>\n

In his opening statement, Fauci said Paul has an \u201cobvious obsession with calling for my prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThe 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, \u2018behind bars,\u2019\u201d Fauci said, adding that while it pains him to do so, he is following his attorney\u2019s advice by taking the Fifth.<\/p>\n

Paul releases some of Fauci\u2019s diary<\/h4>\n

Paul in his opening statement sought to build the case that Fauci helped produce the COVID-19 pandemic by approving funding of research on virus mutations and then covered up his complicity.<\/p>\n

Democratic Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the committee\u2019s ranking member, said the hearing was a partisan exercise that looked backward instead of focusing on current national security challenges.<\/p>\n

Leading up to the hearing, Paul released more than 1,000 pages of Fauci\u2019s personal diary covering the pandemic years. Pointing to some notes about early efforts at understanding how the virus emerged, Paul wrote on the social media platform X that what Fauci \u201cwrote privately and what he told the country are two different stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Some of the diary entries \u2013 including Fauci\u2019s uncertainty in the pandemic\u2019s earliest days as scientists around the world raced to understand the new virus and how best to curb it before vaccines could be created \u2013 already were reflected in a 2024 memoir and in interviews at the time.<\/p>\n

But they have nonetheless drawn attention from people who blame Fauci for mask mandates, school closures and other policies they believe infringed on their rights as hundreds of thousands of people were dying.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the hearing, President Donald Trump wrote on social media that he stopped relying on Fauci over the course of the pandemic because he felt Fauci made bad decisions on masks, shutdowns and other issues.<\/p>\n

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In a statement, Fauci\u2019s attorney David Schertler said Paul\u2019s accusations are \u201cfalse and disgraceful, and we will examine all options to hold him accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist before he entered public office, said Monday that his department gave the diary entries, which were created on a government computer, to the committee. He told a Fox News Channel host that he thought Fauci might lie before the committee, opening him to perjury prosecution.<\/p>\n

Paul told Fauci that he may still face repercussions for obstructing a congressional investigation by refusing to testify. That could include a contempt of Congress citation, which would be referred to the Justice Department for consideration.<\/p>\n

Scientists scrambled to Fauci\u2019s defense ahead of the unusual hearing \u2014 the second time the longtime National Institutes of Health scientist has been back before Congress to discuss pandemic origins since leaving the government in 2022. While the COVID-19 pandemic introduced him to millions of Americans, he talked the nation through numerous outbreaks over decades, including HIV, Ebola and the 2001 anthrax attacks, while advising seven presidents.<\/p>\n

Some disease experts criticize the accusations against Fauci<\/h4>\n

In a public letter, more than 150 infectious-disease experts and other scientists wrote that \u201cno credible evidence has been produced to support these absurd charges\u201d and that they are \u201curging our elected representatives in Congress stop these witch-hunts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The expected crux of Wednesday\u2019s hearing was whether NIH-funded research in China may have played a role in how the pandemic started.<\/p>\n

Many scientists believe the virus most likely emerged in nature and jumped from animals to people, coming to light when it spread at a wildlife market in the Chinese city of Wuhan. There\u2019s no new scientific information supporting that the virus might instead have leaked from a laboratory, a theory Paul champions. A GOP-led subcommittee that studied the question in 2024 did not find any evidence linking Fauci to wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

Fauci has long said publicly that he was open to both theories but that there\u2019s more evidence supporting COVID-19\u2019s natural origins, the way other deadly viruses including coronavirus cousins SARS and MERS jumped into people.<\/p>\n

Republicans also have accused Fauci of lying about whether his agency funded what\u2019s known as gain of function research \u2014 the practice of enhancing a virus in a lab to study its potential real-world impact \u2014 at a lab in Wuhan.<\/p>\n

The NIH for years gave grants to a New York nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance, which used some of the funds to work with a Chinese lab studying coronaviruses commonly carried by bats. But the definition of gain of function covers both general research and especially risky experiments to enhance the ability of potential pandemic viruses to spread or cause severe disease in humans. Fauci has previously stressed he was using the risky experiment definition and that \u201cit would be molecularly impossible\u201d for those bat virus experiments to have turned into the pandemic virus.<\/p>\n

Trump, a Republican, last year paused some federally funded gain of function research, and on Tuesday his administration announced new rules to tighten oversight.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Swenson reported from New York.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow the AP\u2019s coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/coronavirus-pandemic.<\/p>\n

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