Fauci Invokes Fifth Amendment Right During Senate Hearing on Covid-19 Pandemic Handling

Former US infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci on Wednesday invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and declined to answer questions before a Republican-led Senate committee investigating his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. The move came during a hearing chaired by Senator Rand Paul, one of Fauci’s most outspoken critics, and is likely to intensify the long-running political battle over the origins of the coronavirus and federal funding of virus research. In his opening statement, Fauci said he was acting on the advice of his lawyers because he believed the hearing was part of an effort to prosecute him rather than uncover new facts. “Under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the 5th Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions,” Fauci told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He accused Paul of pursuing an “unhinged” campaign to see him imprisoned and argued that the hearing was intended to get him to say something that could be used against him. Fauci’s attorney, David Schertler, described Paul’s actions as an “obsessive vendetta” and called the accusations against his client “false and disgraceful.” 🚨 BREAKING: Sen. Rand Paul just had Capitol Police EJECT Anthony Fauci’s attorney from the building after he REFUSED to stop screaming during the hearing Lock this guy up too. This is one big Fauci crime syndicate. pic.twitter.com/D8ibme62bB — Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) July 29, 2026 The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution protects individuals from being compelled to testify against themselves in criminal cases. Invoking the Fifth does not amount to an admission of guilt. Instead, it allows a witness to refuse to answer questions if the responses could potentially be used in a future criminal proceeding. Fauci’s decision means he declined to respond to lawmakers’ questions during Wednesday’s hearing while preserving his constitutional protection against self-incrimination. Paul has repeatedly accused Fauci of misleading Congress about whether the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded “gain-of-function” research at a laboratory in Wuhan, China, and of helping conceal the origins of Covid-19 . Fauci has consistently denied those allegations, saying he testified truthfully before Congress and that the research in question did not meet the government’s regulatory definition of gain-of-function research. The dispute centres on NIH grants awarded to EcoHealth Alliance, a US-based nonprofit that collaborated with researchers studying bat coronaviruses in Wuhan. While Paul argues the work amounted to gain-of-function research, Fauci maintains it did not fall under the federal definition of experiments considered especially risky. The hearing also revived debate over how the coronavirus pandemic began. According to the Reuters report, US intelligence agencies remain divided. The FBI has assessed that a laboratory leak in Wuhan is the likely origin of the virus, while the CIA earlier this year shifted to a “low confidence” assessment favouring the lab-leak theory. Four other US intelligence agencies and the National Intelligence Council continue to believe the virus most likely emerged through natural transmission from animals to humans. China has rejected the lab-leak theory. The hearing came days after Paul released more than 1,100 pages of Fauci’s pandemic-era diary entries, arguing they contradicted the government’s public messaging. Fauci’s representatives, however, said the entries were consistent with his public statements throughout the pandemic. It also followed the Trump administration’s announcement on Tuesday that it would bar federal funding for what it described as “dangerous gain-of-function” research, an issue that has remained at the centre of the years-long dispute between Fauci and congressional Republicans. (With inputs from AP, Reuters)