Senate committee votes to hold Fauci in contempt

Healthcare Senate committee votes to hold Fauci in contempt Comments: by Joseph Choi - 08/06/26 9:14 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Joseph Choi - 08/06/26 9:14 AM ET Comments: Link copied

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The Senate committee chaired by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Thursday voted to refer former chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci to be held in contempt.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in a party-line, 8-5 vote, with two additional “no” votes by proxy, approved a resolution to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress following his hearing last week, during which the doctor invoked his Fifth Amendment rights 111 times and refused to answer a single question posed to him by the panel centered on the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Holding a witness in contempt is a serious thing, and it should be rare. But the contempt power exists for precisely this circumstance. Oversight is not a courtesy this committee extends or a favor a former official grants us. It is a constitutional obligation,” Paul said in his opening remarks.

Criminal referrals that come from committees usually go to the full Senate for a vote, but Paul can also send it to the Department of Justice (DOJ). The Kentucky Republican indicated last week that he planned to move it directly to DOJ to not “waste time.”

The referral is not a mandate, and the DOJ will ultimately decide whether to take up the referral.

Lawmakers are split along party lines as to whether Fauci retains constitutional protections in this situation given he received a sweeping pardon from former President Biden. The pardon covers any offense the doctor may have committed from Jan. 1, 2014, to Jan. 19, 2025.

In a letter to colleagues, the committee’s ranking member, Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), wrote, “A federal pardon does not eliminate an individual’s Fifth Amendment protection if they still face a ‘real and appreciable’ risk of federal or state prosecution.”

“Following a one-sided investigation and a rushed process that has repeatedly excluded the minority and other members of this committee, the chairman is now asking the committee to take a vote that could harm our ability to conduct future investigations and disregards constitutional protections long recognized by the U.S. Senate,” Peters said on Thursday.

Democratic members of the committee, including Peters and Sens. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) and Maggie Hassan (N.H.), brought up numerous motions to table the resolution, all of which were voted down by the Republican majority.

Fauci’s attorneys argued in a letter last week that Paul’s stated aims of getting the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases imprisoned clash with his claims that the doctor should speak freely without concern about potential legal blowback.

In May, the senator called for Fauci to be indicted for what Paul claimed was lying under oath about gain-of-function research, saying Fauci did so in 2021. These actions would fall within the scope of Biden’s pardon.

Updated at 9:30 a.m. EDT

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