Sen. Rand Paul has been angling to hold former top immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci accountable for a great many things since the diminutive New York native was essentially running the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
That moment of accountability finally arrived on Thursday.
The Kentucky Republican’s Senate committee voted along party lines—as usual—to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress after he invoked the Fifth Amendment 111 times during his appearance before the panel earlier this week.
Paul said at the time there was no need for Fauci to do that since he’d already been pardoned for any potential crimes at the last minute by President Joe Biden’s autopen.
“All he had to do was tell the truth,” Paul said as he opened the vote.
“There will be another pandemic. The time to determine which legislative reforms are necessary to make sure the mistakes of the past are not repeated is now, not later,” Paul added.
At one point, Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) ripped on Paul, but that’s nothing new – Democrats have refused to participate in getting to the bottom of Fauci’s funding of the lab where the virus allegedly leaked for years.
“This investigation has been one-sided from the beginning,” Peters said. “The minority has been excluded from witness interviews and full access to committee records and information has been selectively released to support conclusions that the chairman reached years ago.”
That’s not true, Paul has repeatedly stated.
For one, Democrats have simply refused to take part in any serious probe.
For another, a website Paul’s committee set up, where all of the evidence uncovered in the investigation of Fauci has been posted, was never accessed by a single Democrat, he said during Tuesday’s hearing.
Fauci, the former long-serving National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director, received a preemptive presidential pardon from Biden in January 2025.
Fauci’s decision to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights drew criticism from a range of public figures, including podcast host Charlamagne Tha God, NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers, and Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio.
While prosecuting him on the federal level may or may not succeed, there are a number of states that have either opened their own investigations of Fauci, like Florida, or are planning to.
“If we can’t put him in prison, let’s put him in court every day for the rest of his life, where he where he has to be punished and listened to the death that he caused,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said after the hearing.
Republican senators are debating the criminal contempt referral over both the legal basis for the effort and the procedural steps required.
Paul told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that he believed there are enough votes in the Senate to approve a contempt of Congress referral against Fauci and said he intends to forward the matter directly to the Justice Department if the effort succeeds.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., a former state attorney general, said his office has begun preparing a memorandum to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche urging the Department of Justice to pursue a criminal contempt case against Fauci.
“My team is working right now on a memo to Blanche explaining why we think that he can be prosecuted for contempt of Congress,” Hawley told Fox News Digital.
“He’s not entitled to immunity, taking the Fifth, when he already has a pardon. It’s one or the other,” he said.
After the committee voted to recommend holding Fauci in contempt, the matter would ordinarily proceed to the full Senate for consideration.
But Paul has instead proposed bypassing a full Senate vote by sending the criminal contempt referral directly to the Department of Justice.
Under that approach, Vice President JD Vance, in his role as president of the Senate, would certify the committee’s action and refer the matter to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.
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