Senators on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt Thursday, after he repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment during a scheduled hearing last week.
Now, the committee can refer the contempt-of-Congress resolution to the Department of Justice, which Committee Chairman Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he would do.
From there, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro must choose whether to prosecute the case. If she does, her office will need to secure an indictment from a grand jury.
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In a statement following the vote, Fauci’s attorney issued the following statement:
“Today’s partisan committee vote is a crude political stunt intended to punish Dr. Fauci for exercising his constitutional rights. The Senate should reject Senator Paul’s meritless and politically-motivated contempt resolution. For years, Senator Paul has proclaimed to anyone who would listen that Dr. Fauci should be prosecuted and put in prison. Dr. Fauci has committed no crime – and Senator Paul knows it. Today’s resolution is a continuation of Senator Paul’s personal vendetta against Dr. Fauci, who spent 50 years in public health and has saved countless lives. It is shameful and wrong that Senator Paul is abusing his power by trying to weaponize the Justice Department against an honorable public servant.”
Democrats resisted the contempt vote
During Thursday’s contempt hearing, Democrats pushed back on the contempt vote. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., said the vote would create a “dangerous precedent.”
“If this committee now seeks to punish a witness for asserting their constitutional protected Fifth Amendment rights, future witnesses will argue that appearing before Congress exposes them to punishment, regardless of whether they comply with the subpoena and invoke a constitutional protection,” Peters said.
He added that others would point “directly to this vote as a justification for refusing to appear at all.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., said last week’s hearing with Fauci was designed to “target a single doctor and dedicated public servant, who has testified before Congress many times before, and they wanted to blame him for everything that went wrong during the pandemic.”
She noted, however, that there is a “real need” for a “serious bipartisan examination” into what worked and what didn’t during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Other Democrats pushed for a vote to table the contempt resolution. Those pushes were rejected along party lines.
Fauci invokes the Fifth
The vote to hold Fauci in contempt comes as Paul and other Republicans have been fierce critics of Fauci and his leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, often questioning his response and the outbreak’s origins.
Fauci appeared before the Senate Oversight Committee last week, after he was formally subpoenaed to testify. However, in his opening remarks and throughout the hearing, Fauci repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment, saying it “pains” him to do so.
With the maneuver, Fauci eliminated the opportunity for fireworks between him and Paul, who planned to question Fauci on COVID-19’s origins and the federal response to the pandemic.
“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 said during the hearing.
But even with Fauci invoking the Fifth, the committee’s efforts and investigations have not stopped.
“There will be repercussions for your refusal to testify,” Paul warned Fauci last week.
Senate committee obtains Fauci’s phone
On Wednesday, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said the Senate’s permanent subcommittee on investigations obtained a copy of Fauci’s phone this week.
“Hopefully, this device will address many of the questions he refused to answer at last week’s hearing,” Johnson wrote on X Wednesday night.
The Department of Health and Human Services handed over the device less than a week after it also turned over Fauci’s personal diary entries.
As Straight Arrow previously reported, in his diaries, Fauci not only memorialized his thoughts at the time, but he described private conversations with prominent figures as they grappled with a once-in-a-lifetime health crisis.
During Thursday’s hearing, Johnson said the committee’s investigation into Fauci has “just begun.”
“We’ve invited Dr. Fauci for a transcribed interview. Okay, he doesn’t want to do it in front of the American public. Come in front of our committee,” Johnson said. “You say you you have nothing to hide. Good. We’ll do it behind closed doors. We’ll transcribe it. That that’s only one of the interviews we’ll be conducting.”
Round out your reading
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- Our personal information is for sale on the internet. We know — we bought it.
