Senate committee finds Fauci guilty of contempt of Congress

A committee of the United States Senate has found infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, who for years led the American response to the Covid-19 pandemic, guilty of contempt of Congress. The motion passed by eight votes to seven. Fauci now faces a possible criminal investigation.

The case stems from a hearing last week, during which Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment at least a hundred times to avoid answering questions about his role during the pandemic.

Senator Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, opened the hearing by arguing that Fauci faced no risk of federal prosecution and should simply have told the truth. Paul said the vote was not about Fauci's health policies or his earlier statements to Congress, but about whether a pardoned witness could ignore an order from the committee without facing consequences.

Fauci explained his decision by saying he had valid reasons to fear criminal charges. He attributed this fear to what he described as Paul's determination to get him to say something that would justify his repeated public vows to see him end up “behind bars”. Democratic senators on the committee argued that Fauci's fear was reasonable, noting that several Republican lawmakers had publicly called for him to be prosecuted.

Biden's pardon and the next steps

The pardon granted by former President Joe Biden covers actions Fauci took between 2014 and January 2025, when it was signed. It does not, however, protect him from state-level proceedings or from investigations into testimony that lawmakers consider false.

The committee must now vote on whether to refer the case to the US Attorney's office in Washington, which will decide whether to open an investigation or attempt to prosecute Fauci for contempt of Congress. For the resolution to take effect, it must also be approved by the full Senate with a sixty-vote majority. Republicans hold fifty-three seats, making that threshold difficult to reach.

Democratic Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, the committee's ranking member, warned that finding Fauci guilty would set a dangerous precedent, since Congress has traditionally respected witnesses' Fifth Amendment rights. According to Peters, punishing a witness for exercising that right could lead future witnesses to fear sanctions even when they comply with a subpoena and invoke a constitutional protection.