Dr. Anthony Fauci invoked his right to remain silent on Wednesday, refusing to answer questions from Congress about his conduct during the coronavirus pandemic, how the virus emerged and whether the U.S. government’s response — which he led — was justified.
He said he feared the hearing, called by Sen. Rand Paul, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, was an attempt to trap him into saying something that would get him prosecuted.
“Under the advice of counsel, I invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions,” he told the committee, refusing to answer any of the questions posed by either Democrats or Republicans.
Mr. Paul, a trained physician himself, has been engaged in a yearslong battle with Dr. Fauci, who for decades ran the infectious diseases unit at the National Institutes of Health, over the pandemic’s origins and the potential dangers of the vaccines the U.S. rushed to approve for treatment.
Dr. Fauci pointed out that Mr. Paul has previously called for his prosecution and, most recently, releaed released years of unredacted entries from Dr. Fauci’s own diary, all “aimed at embarrassing” him.
“The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something — anything — that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars,’” said Dr. Fauci, who is now retired from government service.
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Mr. Paul had forced him to appear by subpoena.
The senator said he wanted answers to whether the U.S. funded risky research at the virus lab in Wuhan, China, that is at the center of suspicion about the origin of the pandemic. And he said he wanted to get into the decision-making in the U.S. surrounding rejection of some treatments, while pushing for the quick deployment of experimental vaccines.
Dr. Fauci was granted a sweeping blanket pardon by President Biden for past actions.
Mr. Paul had said that should have cleared Dr. Fauci to be able to speak to the committee. Dr. Fauci disagreed.
Tensions surged, to the point that one of Dr. Fauci’s lawyers was tossed from the hearing room for trying to speak without being recognized by the committee.
The Biden pardon covers past activity.
Mr. Paul said he rejected Dr. Fauci’s reasoning behind invoking his right to remain silent, and said the committee won’t let the matter drop.
“It’s against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress. There will be repercussions to your refusal to testify today,” Mr. Paul said.
Dr. Fauci became the face of the U.S. effort to combat the virus.
He was part of President Trump’s task force, though tensions quickly built between the two men as Mr. Trump pushed for faster reopening of the country after the initial shutdowns, while Dr. Fauci grew frustrated with the mercurial president and his team.
In the diary released by Mr. Paul, Dr. Fauci called Mr. Trump “embarrassing” and “a very dangerous man.”
After Mr. Trump departed the White House, Mr. Biden tapped Dr. Fauci to be his top pandemic adviser.
His ups and downs with the two politically divergent presidents made Dr. Fauci a polarizing figure. Trump supporters largely disdain him as having made the pandemic recovery worse, while Trump critics have lionized him as a crucial voice in saving lives.
Dr. Fauci’s repeated insistence that the virus most likely spilled over from animals has also been a major point of controversy. Some U.S. agencies, including the FBI, say the more likely source is that the virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Dr. Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases provided funding to EcoHealth Alliance, which in turn funded research at the Wuhan lab on bat coronaviruses.
Dr. Fauci has said that research was not dangerous gain-of-function experiments. Other experts disagree.
