Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former White House chief medical adviser, is set to face a contempt of Congress vote next week after invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times during a combative Senate hearing into his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee grew increasingly tense as Fauci repeatedly declined to answer questions about the pandemic response, the push for masking and lockdown measures, and the disputed origins of the coronavirus. Committee Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has for years accused Fauci of downplaying the possibility that COVID-19 emerged from a lab in Wuhan, China, led the questioning and afterward said senators plan to hold a vote on a contempt referral at a committee business meeting scheduled for 10 a.m. on Aug. 5.
Paul said it remains an open legal question whether Fauci could ultimately face prosecution, given that he received a preemptive pardon from former President Joe Biden covering his conduct between 2014 and 2025 before Biden left office in January 2025. Even so, Paul said he intends to make the contempt referral regardless of the pardon’s reach, arguing that Congress has an independent interest in enforcing its subpoena power.
Acting CDC Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a longtime critic of the pandemic-era public health establishment, also testified and accused Fauci of abusing his position of authority during the crisis, saying he shut down legitimate scientific debate and disparaged colleagues, including Bhattacharya himself, who questioned the wisdom of lockdowns and school closures. Fauci, for his part, told the committee he was following the advice of his attorneys in invoking his constitutional right against self-incrimination and denied any wrongdoing.
The hearing was one of the most heated confrontations yet in Republicans’ years-long effort to hold Fauci accountable for his role steering the federal pandemic response, which included his leadership of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and his advisory role to both the Trump and Biden administrations. Democrats on the committee pushed back sharply, calling the proceeding a politically motivated attempt to punish a public health official for decisions made amid an unprecedented crisis.
The controversy has also spread beyond Washington. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has opened a separate state-level investigation into Fauci, a move that could open a new avenue of legal exposure regardless of the fate of any federal contempt referral or the reach of Biden’s pardon, since presidential pardons cover only federal offenses and would not shield Fauci from state prosecution.
If the Senate committee votes to hold Fauci in contempt next week, the matter would likely be referred to the Justice Department, though prosecutors would still need to weigh the practical and legal complications created by the pardon before deciding whether to pursue charges. Legal experts have noted that a president’s pardon power does not extend to protecting someone from being held in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify, since contempt is a distinct legal proceeding from prosecution for underlying conduct.
The scheduled Aug. 5 vote sets up another flashpoint in the broader reckoning over pandemic-era policy that has continued to play out in Congress years after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, with Republicans pressing for accountability on lab-leak theories, vaccine mandates, and the suppression of dissenting scientific views.