Senate Panel Holds Fauci in Contempt Over COVID Refusal

A Senate committee voted along party lines Thursday to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions at a hearing on his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, setting up a referral to the Justice Department for potential investigation. The 8-5 vote by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee came a week after Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times during his appearance before the panel, according to AP News.

The Contempt Vote

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, the committee chairman who pressed for the contempt finding, argued that Fauci’s constitutional protection did not apply because the former top infectious disease official received a pardon from Democratic President Joe Biden in January 2025 and thus did not have to worry about the threat of federal prosecution.

“Dr. Fauci faced no risk of federal prosecution,” Paul said at the outset of Thursday’s vote. “All he had to do was tell the truth.”

Paul directed the contempt referral directly to the Justice Department, bypassing a full Senate vote that would have required 60 votes. Republicans hold 53 seats in the 100-member Senate. A department spokesperson confirmed Thursday evening that the DOJ had received the referral and is “reviewing it and will work with the Senate accordingly,” as BBC News reported.

Fauci’s Fifth Amendment Defense

Fauci, who led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 38 years before retiring in 2022, appeared before the committee on July 29 after being subpoenaed by Paul. He declined to answer dozens of questions, invoking his constitutional right against self-incrimination each time.

In his opening statement, Fauci said Paul had an “obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution” and accused the chairman of trying to get him to say “something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars.’”

“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,” Fauci said during the hearing, as The Guardian reported.

Fauci’s lawyer, David Schertler, called the contempt vote a “crude political stunt” and accused Paul of pursuing a “personal vendetta” against his client.

“Today’s partisan committee vote is a crude political stunt intended to punish Dr. Fauci for exercising his constitutional rights,” Schertler said in a statement. “The Senate should reject Senator Paul’s meritless and politically-motivated contempt resolution.”

The Pardon and the Legal Debate

Biden issued Fauci a preemptive pardon on January 19, 2025, covering offenses from January 1, 2014 through the date of the pardon, related to his service as Director of NIAID, member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, and Chief Medical Advisor to the President. The pardon was part of a broader set of clemency actions in the final hours of Biden’s presidency.

The core legal question is whether a presidential pardon eliminates a witness’s Fifth Amendment protections. Republicans argue that because the pardon eliminates the threat of federal prosecution, Fauci no longer has a reasonable fear of self-incrimination and therefore must testify.

But legal experts note that the pardon does not protect Fauci from state-level prosecutions or from federal investigations into any testimony he gave that lawmakers deemed false. The current Justice Department has repeatedly initiated false statement investigations into perceived adversaries of President Donald Trump, as AP News reported.

The Trump administration has also raised questions about whether the Biden pardons were valid given Biden’s frequent use of an autopen to conduct official business. Legal experts say the pardons are valid.

“The question is do you have a reasonable fear of prosecution, and Fauci’s argument would be — yes, I received a pardon, yes, I believe that pardon covers and prevents prosecution but there have been statements from lots of people including Trump and other administration officials raising questions about the validity of that pardon,” said Ross Garber, a lawyer and expert in political investigations, in comments reported by Snopes. “That is potentially a very viable argument.”

Democrats Respond

Democrats who unanimously opposed the contempt resolution argued that Fauci had a well-founded fear of self-incrimination given the publicly stated desires of Republican lawmakers, including Paul, to see him prosecuted in connection with COVID.

“The goal was to wait for Dr. Fauci to make any kind of misstatement and then have a weaponized Department of Justice file criminal charges for that new statement that would not have been covered by the pardon, leaving Dr. Fauci little choice but to invoke his constitutional right to not walk directly into a trap,” said Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire.

Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the committee’s ranking Democrat, questioned whether the referral would be legally valid if Paul did not seek a vote before the full Senate. He warned that punishing a witness for exercising constitutional rights could have far-reaching consequences.

“If this committee now seeks to punish a witness for asserting their (constitutionally) protected Fifth Amendment rights, future witnesses will argue that appearing before Congress exposes them to punishment regardless of whether they comply with a subpoena and invoke a constitutional protection,” Peters said, as Fortune reported.

Trump Weighs In

President Donald Trump commented on the situation Thursday at the White House, noting that two advisers from his first term, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, were jailed on contempt charges during the Biden administration after they defied congressional subpoenas.

“When you see that happen, you sort of say maybe he should,” Trump said of Fauci being prosecuted. “What he did is far more serious than a lot of crimes, frankly.”

The Enduring Politics of COVID

The Fauci contempt vote reflects the enduring political divide over the COVID-19 pandemic, six years after the virus thrust the world into a global health crisis. Republicans, led by Paul, view Fauci as a symbol of government overreach during the pandemic. Democrats view the contempt vote as a politically motivated attack on a public health official who saved countless lives.

The effort comes amid a broader Republican push to revisit COVID-era policies and hold scientists and officials accountable. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has limited the availability of COVID-19 vaccines and questioned whether they protected children, while the White House has promoted the lab leak theory of the pandemic’s origins, according to AP News analysis.

“The response to COVID has become a touchstone for Trump’s Republican Party,” said Matt Dallek, a political scientist at George Washington University. “They’re using their power now to argue they were right all along.”

What Happens Next

The Justice Department will review the contempt referral but is not compelled to act. A referral from Congress does not require prosecution. If the DOJ declines to pursue charges, the contempt finding may have limited practical effect.

If the DOJ does pursue contempt charges, Fauci could face up to 12 months in prison and a fine of up to $1,000. The case could also establish important precedent about whether a pardoned witness can invoke the Fifth Amendment before Congress.

Legal experts note that the outcome could resonate beyond Fauci, as President Trump may issue similar pardons to administration officials who might later be called before Congress. The vote could also energize both parties’ bases heading into the 2026 midterm elections.

Contempt prosecutions and convictions are rare. In 2024, former Trump allies Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro were both convicted of contempt of Congress and sentenced to jail, marking the first such convictions since the 1980s.

Meanwhile, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said Thursday that the Department of Health and Human Services had provided a copy of Fauci’s cellphone from his government service to a subcommittee he chairs, indicating that Republican scrutiny of Fauci is likely to continue regardless of the DOJ’s decision.

“Hopefully, this device will address many of the questions he refused to answer at last week’s hearing,” Johnson wrote on social media.