GOP senators vote to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress for pleading the Fifth during tense hearing

Senate Republicans voted 8-5 to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt after he invoked the Fifth Amendment over 100 times during a Senate hearing.

Senate Republicans voted to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress after he declined to answer lawmakers’ questions during a fiery hearing last week.

Fauci, who has been a target of the right since he served as a top health official during the Covid pandemic, repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment right during the hearing, explaining in his opening remarks that he believed Republicans would try to use his testimony to prosecute him.

Now, Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee have pushed to do just that with the 8-5, party-line vote.

“We are voting on whether a witness who has received the benefit of a sweeping federal pardon can be ordered by this committee to answer questions and then defy that order without consequence,” committee Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., said in his opening statement at the meeting. Paul was referring to a pardon that then-President Joe Biden gave to Fauci and several others just prior to leaving office, which Biden said was to protect them from potential politically motivated prosecutions.

The committee can refer the contempt of Congress resolution directly to the Justice Department or request that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., hold a full Senate vote. Paul said yesterday that the “first thing we will do” if the resolution was approved would be to refer the matter to the Justice Department.

Paul said after the vote that the committee would hand-deliver the referral to the Justice Department.

“We will hand deliver it today to the attorney general, and we will hand deliver it today to the District of Columbia, to the U.S. attorney there,” Paul told reporters.