Dr. Anthony Fauci declined a voluntary request to testify before another Senate panel, with his attorney arguing that compelling further testimony after Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment 100 times at a July hearing would amount to political harassment.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Dr. Anthony Fauci has declined a request to appear voluntarily before a second Senate panel investigating the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic, escalating an already contentious standoff with Republican lawmakers.
An attorney for Fauci informed Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., on Friday that the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases would not voluntarily testify before Johnson’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
The refusal comes little more than a week after the Senate Homeland Security Committee voted along party lines to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress over his conduct during a July 29 hearing.
Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 100 times during that appearance as senators questioned him about his handling of the pandemic.
The committee approved the contempt finding Aug. 6, potentially setting up a referral to the Department of Justice to determine whether Fauci’s refusal to answer questions constituted contempt of Congress.
In the letter to Johnson, Fauci’s attorney argued that another effort to compel his testimony after the July hearing would “impermissibly harass or degrade Dr. Fauci for political purposes.”
Johnson had sought Fauci’s testimony as part of a separate Senate investigation into the pandemic response, including questions surrounding the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.
The dispute has also renewed disagreement over whether Fauci can properly invoke the Fifth Amendment after receiving a preemptive pardon from former President Joe Biden.
Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., who pushed for the contempt vote, has argued that Fauci no longer faces a legitimate risk of prosecution because of the pardon and therefore cannot rely on the constitutional protection against self-incrimination.
Fauci’s legal team has taken a different position, maintaining that he is entitled to assert his constitutional rights.
Paul has been one of Fauci’s most persistent congressional critics and has repeatedly accused the former infectious disease official of misleading Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Their disputes have played out publicly for years in congressional hearings and interviews.
Paul has also repeatedly called for Fauci to face criminal prosecution and imprisonment.
The July 29 hearing marked another major confrontation between the two, with Fauci repeatedly declining to answer questions by invoking the Fifth Amendment.
That testimony ultimately prompted the Homeland Security Committee’s Aug. 6 contempt vote.
Johnson, meanwhile, has pursued a separate line of inquiry through the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
His planned questioning was expected to focus broadly on Fauci’s involvement in the federal COVID-19 response, including government decision-making during the pandemic and issues involving COVID-19 vaccines.
Fauci’s latest refusal means that congressional Republicans now face a decision over whether to attempt to compel his appearance through a subpoena or take other action.
For now, the former NIAID director remains at the center of two parallel Senate investigations, with one committee already moving toward a possible Justice Department referral and another facing resistance to its request for voluntary testimony.
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