Dr. Fauci invokes the Fifth Amendment during Senate hearing. Here’s what it means
- Dr. Anthony Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, declining to answer questions at a Senate hearing on Covid-19 origins and the government’s pandemic response.
- Fauci stated in prepared remarks that he took this action to avoid potential perjury prosecution by Republicans. The decision surprised the hearing, which was anticipated to be contentious due to Fauci’s past clashes with Chairman Rand Paul.
- “The 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, ‘behind bars,’” Fauci said, adding that while it hurts him to do so, he is following his attorney’s advice by taking the Fifth.
- Fauci accused Senator Paul of an “obvious obsession” with his prosecution. Leading up to the hearing, Paul released more than 1,000 pages of Fauci’s 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 “wrote privately and what he told the country are two different stories.”
- While sidestepping immediate calls for prosecution, Fauci’s invocation of the Fifth Amendment means refusing to answer questions or give testimony that could cause him to admit to a crime or incriminate himself.
More bulletins