Anthony Fauci, former top US infectious disease expert, invoked the Fifth Amendment on Wednesday (July 29), declining to answer questions during a Republican-led Senate committee hearing on the federal government’s handling of the .
Republican lawmakers continue to scrutinize his role in the nation’s response and accuse him of misleading Congress about research linked to the —allegations he has repeatedly denied.
The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) appeared before the committee after being subpoenaed by Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.
Fauci cites legal advice
In his opening statement, Fauci said he was invoking his constitutional right against self-incrimination on the advice of his attorney.
“The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this Committee is to prompt me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars,'” Fauci said, referring to Senator Paul.
He added that invoking the Fifth Amendment was a difficult decision but necessary under the circumstances.
Fauci’s move effectively prevented lawmakers from questioning him on issues including the government’s pandemic response, the origins of COVID-19, and US-funded research involving laboratories in China.
Rand Paul renews criticism
Opening the hearing, Paul accused Fauci of helping create the conditions that led to the pandemic by approving research involving virus mutations and then attempting to conceal his role.
“Instead of an apology, you have for years avoided responsibility,” Paul said.
Democratic Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, the committee’s ranking member, dismissed the hearing as politically motivated, arguing that lawmakers should focus on current national security threats rather than revisiting debates over the pandemic.
Fauci’s diary released
Ahead of the hearing, Paul released more than 1,000 pages from Fauci’s personal diary documenting the pandemic years.
Posting on X, Paul claimed the documents showed that “what Fauci wrote privately and what he told the country are two different stories.”
Some of the diary entries describe Fauci’s uncertainty during the early stages of the outbreak, when scientists were still trying to understand the new and develop effective public health measures. Similar accounts had already appeared in Fauci’s 2024 memoir and previous interviews.
Fauci’s attorney, David Schertler, rejected Paul’s allegations, calling them “false and disgraceful” and saying all legal options were being considered.
Trump’s attack on Fauci: ‘He always tried to protect China’
Ahead of the hearing, on social media, saying he gradually stopped relying on the veteran scientist because of disagreements over masks, lockdowns and other pandemic policies.
Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Many more people died of Covid under the Biden Administration than under the Trump Administration. “Operation Warp Speed” was a SPECTACULAR SUCCESS, in fact, many say, one of the most successful things ever done by an American President. I overrode Fauci on this. His ideas were CRAZY! Also, I said from the beginning that the Virus came from the Wuhan Laboratory in China. Fauci strongly disagreed, always trying to protect China. I Inherited Fauci, who was there since the 1980’s, but with each passing day, relied less and less on him. He made too many bad calls, like on MASKS. Remember at the beginning he was an anti-masker. He then switched to a super-masker. In any event I didn’t let him shut the Country down, although he wanted to. I went the Federalist way, and let the governors decide. The Republican governors did a much better job than the Dumocrats. Fauci was largely taken out of play, and then along came Sleepy Joe Biden, who made Fauci a “King!” I called Biden to tell him Fauci was no good, either didn’t have a clue, or was dishonest. The call was well received, but sadly, not acted on. Biden went on to give Fauci vast destructive power. The rest is history!”
Debate over COVID origins
The central focus of the hearing was whether research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in China contributed to the origins of COVID-19.
Republicans have also accused Fauci of misleading Congress about whether NIH grants awarded to New York-based EcoHealth Alliance supported .
A Republican-led House subcommittee that investigated the issue in 2024 did not find evidence linking Fauci to wrongdoing.
