Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, surprised Republican senators Wednesday when he opened a congressional hearing by invoking his Fifth Amendment right and declining to answer questions about the COVID-19 pandemic.
But the hearing did not end there. In a departure from many proceedings in which witnesses refuse to testify, Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee continued questioning Fauci for nearly four hours.
Republicans, led by committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-Ky.), pressed Fauci on the pandemic’s origins, alleged discrepancies between his public statements on COVID mandates and private remarks, and his backing of foreign research funding tied to controversial “gain of function” experiments that can increase a virus’s infectiousness.
Democrats used much of their allotted time to criticize what they described as the “biased” framing of the hearing. Ranking Member Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and other Democrats accused Paul of shutting them out of hearing preparations and broader investigative efforts led by the committee’s Republican majority.
As the session wrapped, Paul said the committee would move next week to begin contempt of Congress proceedings against Fauci. He also challenged the scope and validity of the broad pardon former President Joe Biden issued in January 2025 to his former White House COVID czar.
“Dr. Fauci isn’t liable for anything as long as he tells the truth, even if he admits that he destroyed records on a routine basis,” Paul said, arguing that Fauci also “can’t be prosecuted for many of the things that are outside the statute of limitations as well.”
“All he had to do today if he wanted to testify was to be honest. As long as he was honest, even about committing a crime, he would have no jeopardy,” Paul continued. “But I think the pardon … has given him more immunity than most people would ever get.”
Before invoking the Fifth, Fauci used his opening statement to sharply criticize Paul, accusing him of an “obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution,” making “repeated slanderous comments” about him, and recently releasing his unredacted personal diary in what Fauci described as an effort to embarrass and intimidate him.
“The only conclusion I can reach,” he concluded, “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.’”
Here’s the five most shocking moments that occurred during Fauci’s appearance:
1. Fauci took the Fifth Amendment 111 times — including on CIA funding of his agency
Fauci took the Fifth at least 111 times to questions that would have teased out critical information about the origins of the COVID pandemic and US funding for gain-of-function research in China.
In another startling example, Paul asked Fauci whether the CIA had ever funded NIAID — before the chairman revealed later in the hearing that he had obtained documents describing the interagency spending agreement.
Similarly, Fauci dodged questions about his since-indicted, ex-senior adviser David Morens, who pleaded not guilty in May to concealing and destroying federal records — and whether he engaged in evasive record-keeping patterns by using a personal cell phone and email address to hide information.
“Our investigation reveals your assistant diligently reported that she deleted tons of emails in 2024. You testified that you did not delete federal records. Who’s telling the truth?” Paul asked at one point.
“On February 2nd, 2020,” he added, citing an email exchange, “you told Francis Collins, ‘Please delete this email after you read it.’”
2. Paul ejected Fauci’s attorney from the hearing room
Paul had US Capitol Police escort Fauci’s attorney, David Schertler, out of the hearing room following a tense exchange a little more than a half-hour into questioning.
It’s unclear if Schertler intended to read from a letter he sent to Paul last month, which was referenced later in the hearing by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) — but he repeatedly tried to interject only to be shouted down by the chairman.
“I’ve said my piece,” Schertler told Paul. The attorney’s letter noted many public statements by Paul threatening to jail Fauci.
Paul lashed out: “This is the way Anthony Fauci wants to be remembered: For a lawyer not listening to the rules. That’s the way you want to be remembered, and that’s what you’re going to do.”
“Would you allow me to make a short statement?” Schertler asked in response.
“You are not recognized, sir,” Paul said. “Security, please remove him from the room.”
Schertler, a prominent defense attorney, has previously represented Joe Biden’s doctor and ex-Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ).
3. Republicans unloaded on Fauci for pandemic failures: ‘Who the f–k do you think you were?’
Several Senate Republicans on the Homeland Security panel used their questioning time to tear into Fauci for pandemic policies that harmed Americans, closed in-person schooling — or in some cases led to their arrest.
“There was a mom in Ohio during the depth of the coronavirus pandemic, decided to go to our high school football game for her son. They hadn’t been out much,” Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) recounted. “They sat alone, far from everybody else — just a mom, a dad, a few kids. They didn’t feel they needed to wear masks because it was stupid, because they were outside.”
“They were dragged out of that stadium and arrested,” Moreno fumed.
“When that story broke, I said to myself, I cannot stand idly on the side and watch this happen. It was about six years ago today that I decided I’m going to give up my businesses, sell them all, run for office, run for the United States Senate,” he added. “Here I am sitting in front of you six years later saying, who the f–k do you think you were for doing that?”
Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.) also drew attention to passages from Fauci’s newly released NIAID diaries, which he acknowledged were authentic in his opening statement, that showed the public health official knew he had pushed for lockdowns — despite publicly denying he did.
“‘I spoke with Bill de Blasio, the mayor of NYC, and convinced him, based on what I was saying publicly and my conversation tonight to close the NYC schools, he had already decided, based on what I was saying on TV. I went on to tell him he should close the bars and restaurants in NYC, and he said he would do this based on my recommendation,’” Moody quoted from the diary entry.
“You even said that you told the president we should shut the whole country down,” she added. “Dr. Fauci, how do you square telling the American people publicly that you didn’t recommend locking anything down with your own diary entry, kept on federal government equipment, saying that your recommendation is what convinced the mayor and the president to lock things down.”
4. Fauci enlisted his staff to solicit millions of dollars in prize money
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) accused Fauci of illegally using his staff to solicit prize money while serving as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“You were using federal employees, with taxpayer money, to apply for and solicit cash prizes for you personally — cash prizes totaling over $1 million,” Hawley scolded Fauci.
“Besides the Dan David Award, you’ve got the Partnership for Public Service, you’ve got the Adelson Prize, you’ve got the Smithsonian Award, you’ve got the National Academy of Medicine’s award, you got the CDC Foundation,” Hawley added.
“In fact, you use eight separate federal employees, on federal time, using federal resources, to solicit cash awards. Isn’t that true?” asked Hawley.
Here’s the latest on Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Senate testimony over his COVID leadership:
Fauci declined to respond, citing his Fifth Amendment right.
5. Sen. Joni Ernst exposed ‘disgusting’ research on aborted baby body parts
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) has revealed that Fauci approved the use of “aborted baby body parts in mice research.”
“NIH-funded coronavirus researcher Dr. Ralph Baric and his colleagues at UNC put parts of livers, thymus and chunks of human fetal lung that they got from aborted, almost five-month-old human babies,” Ernst said. “They put those parts in their research mice. They disgustingly named them ‘BLT-L’ mice, and wrote they had created a ‘sandwich of aborted body parts in the mice.’”
“Get it folks? BLT, a BLT sandwich,” Ernst emphasized. “Thankfully, the current NIH director has said no more of this. Dr. Fauci, yes or no? Do you think that human aborted parts should be put into mice for coronavirus research?” she asked.
Fauci again declined to answer the question.
