Dr. Anthony Fauci has pled the Fifth during a Senate hearing into his actions during the COVID-19 pandemic.In the Republican-led committee hearing on Wednesday, Fauci invoked his right to not answer questions about his handling of the pandemic as well as accusations that he had lied about the origins of the virus, an accusation he has continually denied.Fauci was one of the leading medical professionals in charge of the United States' response to the 2020 pandemic, serving as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) from 1984 to 2022 and as chief medical advisor to the president from 2021 to 2022.Fauci had received a full, unconditional, and preemptive pardon from former president Joe Biden in 2025 covering federal offences from January 2014 to January 2025.At the time of the pardon, Biden said that the pardon was not an admission of guilt or an accusation towards Fauci but a protective measure against politically motivated investigations.In his opening statement at the hearing on Wednesday, Fauci said that Kentucky Senator and committee chairman Rand Paul, whose subpoena led to this hearing, has an "obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution.”"The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to prompt me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars,'" Fauci said in his opening remarks, defending his invoking of the Fifth..After his opening remarks, Fauci would respond to every question or remark put to him by saying, "On the advice of council I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution."The hearing was emotionally charged with Republican politicians seemingly upset with Fauci's refusal to answer the questions put to him, with one senator, Bernie Moreno, asking Fauci, "Who the f*ck did you think you were?".Fauci's lawyer, David Schertler, called the behaviour of the committee "outrageous" and added that the fact that he was removed from the committee by Paul because he had been sitting at the table with Fauci showed the "vindictive nature" of the hearing."It proves the baseless and vindictive nature of this proceeding and Rand Paul's personal vendetta against Dr. Fauci," he said.The committee accused Fauci of deliberately misleading the public to fuel partisan discourse about what the correct response to the pandemic should be and where the virus originated from in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election.Paul also accused Fauci of causing the virus by funding research about virus mutation and then covering up his involvement in this research.Democratic senator and ranking member of the committee Gary Peters called the hearing a partisan ordeal and said that politicians should be looking forward, not looking backwards.In total, Dr. Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment 111 times during the hearing.
