US Senate panel votes to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress over Covid hearing

A Republican-controlled US Senate committee voted to hold Dr Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress after the veteran public health official repeatedly pleaded the fifth amendment to parry a hostile inquisition into his stewardship of the response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Fauci, the former director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid), who led the agency for 38 years before retiring in 2022, gave the same response to dozens of questions while refusing to give clarifying answers during a tense hearing last week, citing his constitutional protections.
The Senate homeland security and government affairs committee voted in favor of referring a potential criminal case against Fauci to the US Department of Justice.
The committee is chaired by Republican Kentucky senator Rand Paul, whom Fauci last week accused of having an "unhinged obsession" with him as he refused to answer questions at the hearing.
Paul insisted on Thursday that he wasn't trying to entrap Fauci. "He had no liability if he told the truth," Paul said during the hearing.
But top Democrats criticized the Republicans-led process. Michigan senator Gary Peters, the ranking Democrat on the Senate panel, argued that the drive to subpoena Fauci, and now to hold him in contempt, accomplished nothing to advance public health.
Paul's work amounts to "a one-sided investigation and a rushed process … that could harm our ability to conduct future investigations", said Peters.
While a contempt referral must typically be approved by the full Senate after a congressional committee, this would likely require a 60-vote majority – requiring Democratic support.
Paul acknowledged this standard path on Wednesday, but said he did not "want to waste time" moving the matter to a vote of the full Senate. He previously suggested during a Fox News interview that he could send the referral directly to the justice department, with a legal brief.
The evening before the vote, it emerged that the US Department of Health and Human Services had provided a copy of Fauci's phone to a Senate subcommittee. "Hopefully, this device will address many of the questions he refused to answer at last week's hearing," Republican Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the subcommittee's chair, wrote on social media.
Fauci, 85, who was pardoned by Joe Biden at the end of his presidency, declined to answer questions after accusing Paul of harboring a goal of "embarrassing and intimidating me" and of putting him "behind bars" because of his leading role in urging widespread restrictions, including masking and social distancing, to combat the pandemic.
"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.
Paul – who had subpoenaed Fauci to appear – warned him during the hearing that his stance would have "repercussions".
Later, he told him: "Because you refuse to answer, citing a privilege that is unsupported because of your pardon, and after being denied to do so, this committee has scheduled a vote next week on a resolution certifying your contempt."
It is unclear whether a vote in favor of contempt will have legal force.
Paul has insisted Fauci is precluded from pleading the fifth, however, on the grounds that the preemptive pardon Biden granted him means he cannot be prosecuted for any of the matters senators were asking him about.
Fauci's lawyers have argued that he is on unassailable legal grounds by pleading the amendment.