Dr. Anthony Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination repeatedly before the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday, and his lawyer was physically removed from the hearing room on Sen. Rand Paul's order.
The 85-year-old former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases sat before the committee he once briefed as the nation's top infectious-disease official and refused, over and over, to answer questions about gain-of-function research, deleted federal records, and his conduct during the COVID-19 pandemic. Paul, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the committee, had subpoenaed Fauci after he declined to appear voluntarily, the Washington Examiner reported.
Fauci's blanket refusal to testify, despite holding a sweeping presidential pardon issued by then-President Joe Biden in January 2025, sets up a direct confrontation between a pardoned former official and the Senate's investigative authority. Paul told Fauci the committee had denied his assertion of privilege and warned that obstruction of a congressional investigation carries legal consequences.
Fauci used his opening statement not to address the substance of the hearing but to accuse Paul of conducting a personal vendetta. He told the committee:
"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, 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.'"
He added that "any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion." Fauci said it "pains me" to invoke the Fifth because of "the respect I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress." But he invoked it anyway, dozens of times, according to the New York Post, each time repeating the same scripted line:
"On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution."
That formulation, polished, lawyered, and delivered on repeat, left the committee with nothing. No answers on gain-of-function research funding in China. No answers on whether federal records were destroyed. No answers on what Fauci knew about COVID-19's origins and when he knew it.
A man who spent years as the most visible government scientist in America, who appeared on cable news almost daily during the pandemic, suddenly had nothing to say under oath.
Paul opened his questioning with a direct challenge. He told Fauci the committee's investigation had uncovered evidence that Fauci's assistant "diligently reported that she deleted tons of emails in 2024." Paul noted that Fauci had previously testified he did not delete federal records, and asked bluntly: "Who's telling the truth? You or your assistant?"
Fauci gave the Fifth Amendment response.
Paul pressed further, citing what he described as "repeated instructions, from you, telling federal officials to delete communications." He pointed to a specific date, February 2, 2020, one day after a conference call on COVID-19 origins, when Fauci allegedly emailed then-NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins with a stark instruction: "Please delete this email after you read it."
That allegation carries weight in part because of what happened to another figure in Fauci's orbit. David Morens, an adviser to Fauci, was indicted by federal prosecutors in May for concealing and destroying federal records. The indictment of a close associate on the very conduct Paul now accused Fauci of directing makes the Fifth Amendment invocation look less like a principled stand and more like a legal strategy.
Paul's opening remarks framed the stakes in human terms. "One million Americans died from COVID-19," he said, according to Just The News. "Some estimate as many as 15 million people died worldwide from COVID-19. Publicly, Anthony Fauci promoted the theory that the virus arose naturally, while privately he was well aware of a mountain of evidence suggesting the virus originated in the lab. The American people deserve answers."
Fauci's response to all of it was the same rehearsed line.
The hearing did not happen in a vacuum. Paul had previously released more than 1,000 pages of Fauci's personal diary from the pandemic years, alleging discrepancies between what Fauci wrote privately and what he told the public. Health Secretary RFK Jr. confirmed his department provided the diary entries, created on a government computer, to the committee, Newsmax reported.
Those diary entries have already produced damaging revelations. Fauci's own notes showed he cultivated relationships with journalists and fixated on his public image during a period when tens of thousands of Americans were dying.
Paul told Fauci directly: "Instead of an apology, you have for years avoided responsibility."
Fauci offered no apology. He offered the Fifth.
The most dramatic moment came when David Schertler, Fauci's lead attorney, was removed from the hearing room by security on Paul's order. Schertler had seated himself at the witness table despite being told he would not be recognized. When Paul began warning Fauci of consequences for refusing to testify, Schertler spoke out in protest.
Paul's response was immediate. "You will respect these proceedings," he told Schertler. "You were told not to sit at the table. You insist on sitting at the table, and we told you you would not be recognized. You are not invited here for testimony, sir. You are being disruptive."
When Schertler continued, Paul cut him off. "You are not recognized, sir. Security, please remove him from the room."
Security escorted Schertler out. The room broke into applause, Fox News reported.
Paul noted for the record that Fauci still had "the other half a dozen attorneys that he brought along today." An 85-year-old retired government scientist who insists he has nothing to hide arrived with roughly seven lawyers and declined to answer a single question.
Schertler later issued a statement calling his ejection "outrageous" and claiming it "demonstrates the completely biased and baseless nature of this proceeding."
At the center of the legal standoff is a question the hearing left unresolved: can Fauci invoke the Fifth Amendment when he already holds a full presidential pardon?
Biden issued the pardon in January 2025, covering conduct from 2014 to 2025, before leaving office. Paul argued the pardon eliminated any risk of criminal self-incrimination, the very risk the Fifth Amendment exists to guard against, and therefore stripped Fauci of the legal basis for his refusal. As Rep. James Comer previously warned, a pardon does not shield a witness from consequences if he lies to the Senate.
Paul told Fauci directly at the hearing's conclusion: "The chairman has denied your assertion of privilege and directed you to answer them, but you nonetheless refuse and stand on privilege despite the existence of the pardon."
He continued: "The committee will have to consider after this hearing what appropriate action should be taken against you for the failure to testify after being directed to do so. It's against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress."
And then the warning: "There will be repercussions to your refusal to testify today."
What those repercussions look like remains unclear. Contempt of Congress is one option. But the committee has not yet announced a specific next step.
Democrats were largely absent from the proceedings, according to the Washington Examiner's account. The partisan divide was stark: Republicans pressed Fauci on pandemic decisions that affected millions of Americans, while Democrats treated the hearing as a political exercise not worth attending. Meanwhile, more than 150 scientists publicly defended Fauci against what they called a political campaign, Newsmax reported.
Their absence left Fauci without allies in the room, but also without anyone to challenge the factual record Paul was building. No Democrat cross-examined the allegations about deleted emails, the Morens indictment, or the gap between Fauci's public statements and his private diary entries.
The broader questions raised by years of investigation into Fauci's conduct, questions about whether the COVID-19 cover-up extended into the intelligence community and beyond, remain unanswered.
A million Americans died during the pandemic. The man who ran the government's infectious-disease response, who shaped the policies that closed schools and businesses and changed daily life for 330 million people, sat in front of the United States Senate and said nothing. He brought seven lawyers, a presidential pardon, and a prepared statement blaming the senator asking the questions. What he did not bring was a single answer.
