Senate Republicans are set to vote on holding Dr.Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress after he declined to answer lawmakers’ questions during a fiery hearing last week.Fauci, who has long been a target of the right since he served as a top health official during the Covid pandemic, repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right during the hearing, explaining in his opening remarks that he believed Republicans would have tried to use his testimony to prosecute him.
Now, Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee are escalating their push to do just that.If the contempt of Congress resolution passes, the committee can refer it directly to the Justice Department or request that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., hold a full Senate vote.
If Jeanine Pirro, the U.S.attorney for the District of Columbia, chooses to try to prosecute the case, her office would need to secure an indictment from a grand jury in the district, where she has a mixed track record.Committee Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., has argued that Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, could not invoke his Fifth Amendment rights because of his pre-emptive pardon from then-President Joe Biden.
“I ordered him to answer and warned him about contempt, yet he still refused,” Paul said in a Tuesday statement.“That is obstruction of a congressional investigation.
The Committee will act accordingly.”Republicans also argued in the contempt resolution that Fauci effectively “waived” his Fifth Amendment right by delivering “his opening testimony on subject matter pertinent to the questions under inquiry.”Abbe Smith, a Georgetown Law professor, said Republicans’ claims about Fauci’s inability to plead the Fifth did not seem correct.“There would have to be some sort of legal understanding about the nature of the pardon and whether it is limitless, and those pre-emptive pardons, those are unique,” she said.�...