Anthony Fauci invokes 5th Amendment right not to testify at Covid hearing, calls Sen. Rand Paul 'unhinged'

Dr. Anthony Fauci declined to answer senators' questions at a hearing Wednesday on the origins of Covid and the government's handling of the pandemic, saying in prepared remarks that he would invoke his 5th Amendment right not to testify to avoid the possibility that Republicans could try to use his testimony to prosecute him for perjury. In his opening statement to the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Fauci pointed to Paul's 'obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me' and his decision to publicly release the doctor's personal journal. 'Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion,' he continued. 'Therefore, although it pains me to do so because of the respect that 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 5th Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions.'