A tense Capitol Hill hearing turned sharply confrontational Wednesday afternoon as an Ohio senator delivered a blistering rebuke of former White House COVID adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno branded Fauci a “total disgrace” during a fiery Senate session focused on the origins of COVID-19, as the former chief medical adviser repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and declined to answer questions more than 100 times.
Moreno said one moment from the pandemic era helped push him toward public office: a report, he recalled, about a mother being arrested while watching an outdoor football game with her family after allegedly violating government rules shaped by public health guidance linked to Fauci.
“Who the f**k do you think you were for doing that?” Moreno said, unleashing one of the hearing’s most explosive moments. “It was a total disgrace to this country,” he continued, adding that if Democrats continued defending Fauci, he hoped voters would see “every one of them” supporting someone he accused of being more focused on celebrity than the responsibilities of his job.
Before that outburst, Moreno turned to the audience and asked anyone who believed they had suffered consequences for questioning COVID-19 restrictions or public health measures to stand. Nearly everyone seated behind Fauci rose to their feet.
The heated exchange came days after Fauci’s personal diaries were made public, offering a glimpse into his encounters with high-profile figures while the United States was still reeling from the deadly early phase of the pandemic.
Fauci, who led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and later served as President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, became one of the most recognizable public figures in America during the 2020 COVID lockdowns.
The diary materials were released by one of Fauci’s most persistent critics, Sen. Rand Paul, who again brought him before the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee on Tuesday to answer questions about the pandemic and the virus’s origins.
During the hearing, he blasted Republicans’ ‘unhinged obsession’ with him.
Bernie Moreno grilled Anthony Fauci on Capitol Hill on Wednesday
The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) testifies before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs on Capitol Hill
Members of the audience, who say they were negatively impacted by their skepticism toward COVID-19 precautions, stood up behind Fauci, at the urging of US Senator Bernie Moreno
The former chief medical advisor invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid self-incrimination in the opening round. He then continued to do so 111 separate times when interrogated by lawmakers on the committee.
‘On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution,’ Fauci told Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul numerous times in the opening round of questions.
During his opening statement, Fauci earlier accused Paul of having an ‘unhinged obsession’ with him.
‘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 noted.
‘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.
Fauci’s attorney, David Schertler, was physically removed by security in an explosive moment when he attempted to speak on behalf of Fauci.
‘I didn’t invite you here to testify,’ exclaimed Paul before setting the guards on him to drag him out.
Fauci during questioning by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, spoke in front of a board featuring a quote from an e-mail attributed to Greg Folkers, former chief of staff to Fauci, which discussed an award Fauci was applying for in recognition of his work during the pandemic
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 that the Republican has ‘built a personal brand’ around his prosecution of the doctor.
Paul responded to the criticism, noting that in ‘no courtroom in America, a witness could 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.
‘You turned your staff into a full-time application machine. You actually wrote to people and said, ‘Do you think maybe I qualify?’ And you got cash for all of this. And it wasn’t just one or two employees, was it? In fact, you used eight separate federal employees on federal time using federal resources to solicit cash for that,’ Hawley probed. Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment again while being questioned by Hawley.
Hawley also shared that Fauci didn’t ‘have any rights under the Fifth Amendment’ because he had been pardoned.
‘As the Supreme Court has been clear for a century or more, Brown versus Walker, 1896. When he has been pardoned, he may not stand upon his privilege,’ Hawley, a Yale and Stanford-educated lawyer, quipped.’
Speaking with members of the media after Wednesday’s hearing on Capitol Hill, Paul revealed that he planned to hold a vote to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress next week.
‘That’s the vote that will happen in committee next week, it will be on contempt of Congress,’ Paul told reporters.
‘We believe with his liability, his immunity from criminal liability, that he didn’t need to hide behind the Fifth Amendment and that maybe the Fifth Amendment doesn’t attach when you have a pardon in place,’ he continued, adding that the ability to plead the Fifth, as mentioned by Hawley, ‘will be a legal question.’
‘But the question on contempt will be voted on and then there’s a question of whether or not the Department of Justice will take it up,’ Paul concluded.
