Dr. Anthony Fauci declined to answer questions about the origins of COVID-19 during a tense committee hearing, while sharply accusing Republicans of maintaining what he called an “unhinged obsession” with him.
In the first round of questioning, Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. He went on to use the same response more than 50 times as lawmakers on the committee pressed him for answers.
“On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution,” Fauci repeatedly told Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul during the opening exchange.
Before questioning began, Fauci used his opening statement to accuse Paul of being fixated on him in a manner he described as “unhinged.”
“Given Senator Paul’s obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me,” Fauci said.
“The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up in his words ‘behind bars,’” Fauci continued.
“Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion,” he added.
At one point, committee Chairman Paul ordered one of Fauci’s attorneys, David Schertler, to leave the hearing. Schertler was escorted out by Capitol Police after attempting to speak on behalf of his client.
Dr. Anthony Fauci testifies during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on Wednesday
Committee Chairman Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, delivers his opening statement as former NIH Director Anthony Fauci testifies before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday
David Schertler (C), the attorney for former NIH Director Anthony Fauci (R), is removed from the hearing room at the direction of committee chairman Paul during a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
David Schertler, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s defense lawyer, is escorted out, as Fauci appears before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee at the Capitol on Wednesday
Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, later read a statement from Fauci’s attorney during his remarks, which accused Paul’s hearing of not being ‘a serious effort to seek information,’ also adding the Republican has ‘built a personal brand,’ around his prosecution of the doctor.
Paul responded to the criticism, noting, in that in ‘no courtroom in America,’ could a ‘witness plead the Fifth Amendment, and your attorney gets to testify.’
‘The attorney is complaining and testifying, saying you didn’t do it. The prosecution is unfair. You don’t get to do that. That’s one thing you give up when you take the Fifth Amendment and say I’m not going to testify, I’m not going to give you information.’
‘He was not invited to testify, and he was out of order, and it was appropriate to have him ejected,’ Paul noted, defending his prior decision to kick Schertler out.
Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, blasted Fauci for using federal employees to enrich himself during the pandemic by applying for a variety of awards to recognize his work.
Fauci’s personal diaries were released earlier this week, showing how he delighted in his interactions with celebrities as America went through the death throes of the early COVID-19 pandemic.
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who also became chief medical advisor to Joe Biden, achieved a fame of his own during lockdowns in 2020.
Fauci’s diaries were published by his longtime adversary, Senator Paul.
Paul accused Fauci of revealing ‘his love for the newfound fame COVID brought him’ before publishing a paragraph the Senator says is of him ‘fangirling’ over explaining Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa to Barbra Streisand.
‘She wanted to know if it was okay to get mRNA vaccine. I told her yes,’ Fauci wrote of the ‘great call.’
He then spoke about listening to Streisand’s music on the Alexa device before saying the longtime star ‘really did not know what Alexa was.’
He then admitted to having ‘butt called’ her later the same day, only to discover Streisand had been planning to call him anyway to ask about differences between the Moderna and Pfizer jabs.
During that call, he said he demonstrated how the Alexa worked by asking her to play Streisand songs.
