Full debate before Senate committee votes to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt

Knights Templar on August 6, 2026 196 views

A Senate committee voted to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress, referring him to the Justice Department for potential prosecution, in the wake of his hearing last week, where he pleaded the Fifth over a hundred times.

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs voted 8-5 to hold Fauci in contempt, despite Democrats' repeated attempts to delay.

During opening remarks of Thursday's vote, Sen. Rand Paul Paul, R-Kentucky, said the contempt vote isn't about Fauci's policy decisions during the Covid-19 pandemic, but about whether a person who gets a Senate subpoena can plead the Fifth Amendment.

Paul said Fauci already has a federal pardon and believes that leaves Fauci with no Fifth Amendment privileges.

Chairman Paul also pushed back on Democrats' claims he is playing partisan politics.

Paul said Fauci had no liability if he told the truth.

Democrats used their first votes to request proposals to delay the resolution against Fauci. The repeated moves failed along party lines, with the eight Republicans prevailing over seven Democrats.

Fauci, who oversaw the U.S. response to the Covid-19 pandemic, appeared before the committee last Wednesday, invoking the Fifth Amendment 111 times as lawmakers worked to question the origins of Covid-19 and virus research.

In his opening statements, Fauci accused Paul of having an "unhinged obsession" with him for years.

Before the hearing, the committee released over 1,100 pages of Fauci's personal diary spanning from 2019 to 2022. Paul said the diary shows "a big level of dishonesty" and claimed Fauci privately expressed concerns that COVID-19 may have come from a laboratory in China while publicly downplaying that possibility.

On Wednesday, a Senate panel obtained a copy of Fauci's iPhone while investigating the doctor's actions during the pandemic. The Department of Health and Human Services transferred the phone to the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations led by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc.

The phone that was turned in was used by Fauci during his time as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, according to Johnson's spokesperson. The phone could be part of more public document transfers on the way.

Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz told The National News Desk that Fauci’s repeated refusals to answer questions by invoking the Fifth Amendment could reflect legal caution rather than an admission of guilt — even after President Joe Biden issued what was described as a sweeping, pre-emptive pardon covering Fauci’s government service from 2014 through January 2025.

Sen. Paul argues a presidential pardon does not prevent Congress from continuing its oversight responsibilities or investigating the government's pandemic response.

Paul plans to send it directly to the Department of Justice with a legal brief supporting enforcement rather than seeking a vote on the Senate floor, where the effort would likely face procedural hurdles.

That means the referral will land on Washington’s U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro's desk. Pirro has drawn recent criticism from Trump over alleged vandalism in the Reflecting Pool when she dropped charges against a former Olympian accused.

Meanwhile, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced his office is opening a separate investigation into Fauci's actions during the pandemic, calling the former NIH official's testimony "unbelievable" and pledging to "get the truth of what happened during COVID."

#anthonyfauci #drfauci #senate #politics #covid19

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