The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee voted along party lines to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress, a move Chairman Rand Paul says will send the matter straight to the Department of Justice.
Eight Republicans on the panel voted Thursday morning to advance the contempt resolution against Fauci, who invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times at a July 29 hearing. Every Democrat on the committee voted no. The Daily Caller reported that Democrats filed multiple motions to table the resolution during the hearing; all of them failed.
The contempt charge stems from a simple standoff: Fauci appeared under subpoena, sat down, delivered a brief opening statement condemning Paul's investigation, and then refused to answer virtually every question that followed. Paul's resolution argues that Fauci's blanket invocation of the Fifth was legally unsupported because former President Biden issued him a "full and unconditional pardon" covering January 1, 2014, through January 19, 2025. A pardon, the resolution contends, removes the legal jeopardy that justifies the privilege in the first place.
At the July 29 hearing, Fauci repeated the same line more than 100 times, by some counts, 111 times:
"On advice of counsel I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution."
He said it when asked whether he lied under oath about gain-of-function research. He said it when asked about the National Institutes of Health's relationship with the intelligence community. He said it when asked about his history of championing high-risk virology research. And he said it when Paul asked whether he had a red folder in front of him, what day of the week it was, and the color of his tie.
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican on the committee, argued that Fauci's refusal to answer even frivolous questions about the color of carpet amounted to an abuse of the privilege, not a legitimate legal defense.
Paul framed the stakes in blunt terms at Thursday's hearing. He told the committee that a subpoena without consequences is just a suggestion, and that seeking the truth is not a witch hunt:
"A subpoena is not an invitation. A subpoena with no consequences is not a subpoena, it's a suggestion. Seeking the truth is not a witch hunt. Accountability is not vengence. Accountability is what stands between the American people and a repeat of the mistakes and the very real consequences of the past."
Rather than wait for the full Senate to act, Paul told reporters he intends to hand-deliver the contempt referral to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, the top federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia. The Washington Examiner reported Paul's reasoning: bypassing the Senate floor eliminates a potential month-long delay.
"This way, we don't sit a month waiting to determine whether or not we bring it to the Senate floor."
That procedural shortcut drew objections from Democrats. Sen. Gary Peters, the committee's ranking member from Michigan, raised concerns that the resolution would be referred to a U.S. Attorney for presentation to a grand jury before the full Senate had a chance to vote on it. Peters also disputed Republican claims that Democrats had been given access to the investigation's documents, saying his party never received notice of the committee's internal website.
Sen. Ron Johnson pushed back on Democratic complaints about the investigation's direction. Paul has pressed for months that the probe is straightforward and transparent, and Johnson echoed that view:
"If the investigation seems one sided, it's because one side simply doesn't want to look at the truth."
Paul reinforced the point on social media. In a post on X, the Kentucky senator wrote that Democrats' claim they had not seen the committee's records was "a cop-out lie," adding that not a single Democrat on the panel had used the committee's internal software to review the investigation's documents.
Committee Democrats mounted a series of procedural challenges before the vote. Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire moved to table the resolution until outside legal experts could weigh in on whether Fauci's use of the Fifth Amendment was valid. That motion failed.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut tried two separate angles. First, he sought to delay the vote until the committee could hear from Fauci's attorney, arguing that Fauci had a reasonable fear of criminal prosecution, pointing to the fact that Paul himself has called for Fauci to be jailed. Second, Blumenthal moved to table the resolution until Fauci could receive a legal guarantee from the Department of Justice that he would not be prosecuted. Both motions failed on party-line votes.
Hawley disputed Blumenthal's premise directly. If Fauci truly feared prosecution, Hawley argued, that fear would not explain why he refused to answer questions about the day of the week or the color of his tie. Indiscriminate invocations on questions that carry zero legal risk, Hawley contended, showed Fauci was using the Fifth as a blanket shield rather than a targeted legal protection.
The legal argument at the center of the contempt resolution rests on a single question: can a pardoned witness still plead the Fifth? Paul's resolution says no. Biden issued Fauci a "full and unconditional pardon" on January 19, 2025, his penultimate day in office, covering conduct from January 1, 2014, through January 19, 2025. That twelve-year window spans the entire period relevant to the committee's questions about gain-of-function research, pandemic decision-making, and NIH's interactions with the intelligence community.
Paul's resolution also argues Fauci forfeited whatever Fifth Amendment claim he might have had by delivering an opening statement at the July 29 hearing. In that statement, Fauci condemned the investigation itself. The resolution contends that a witness who voluntarily addresses the subject matter under oath cannot then refuse to answer follow-up questions about the same subject.
Rep. James Comer reinforced the Republican legal position. Fox News reported Comer's view: "If former President Biden's blanket autopen pardon is valid, then Dr. Fauci has no right to refuse to answer questions."
Paul acknowledged the weight of the vote. He told the committee that documents tell only part of the story, and that many of the investigation's remaining questions can be answered only by Fauci himself. That framing positioned the contempt charge not as political theater but as a necessary enforcement mechanism to compel testimony from the one person who holds the answers.
Beyond the contempt vote, Breitbart reported that the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has obtained a copy of Fauci's phone from the Department of Health and Human Services, a device that may answer some of the very questions Fauci refused to address under oath.
That development adds a second track to the investigation. Even if Fauci continues to refuse testimony, the phone's contents could fill gaps in the record about what he knew, when he knew it, and whom he communicated with during the pandemic's critical early months.
National Review reported that committee-released diary entries have already revealed Fauci privately gave more credibility to the COVID lab-leak hypothesis than he acknowledged publicly, a discrepancy that sits at the heart of ongoing scrutiny of his pandemic record.
The contempt resolution now moves toward the Department of Justice. Paul has signaled he will deliver it personally rather than wait for the full Senate to schedule a floor vote. If the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia accepts the referral, the matter could be presented to a grand jury, a step that would transform a congressional dispute into a criminal proceeding.
Fauci's attorney has not publicly responded to the contempt vote. Whether Fauci will continue to stonewall, negotiate terms for testimony, or challenge the resolution in court remains an open question.
For millions of Americans who lived through lockdowns, school closures, and shifting public-health guidance that later proved wrong, the question was never complicated. A man who helped run the country's pandemic response owes the public answers, and a pardon that shields him from prosecution only makes it harder to justify his silence.
