Anthony Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times during a Senate hearing on July 29, declining to answer questions about the origins of COVID-19 and his handling of the pandemic, according to Al Jazeera.
Fauci, who led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 38 years before retiring in 2022, was subpoenaed by the Senate of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Sen. Rand Paul, the committee chairman, has accused him for years of misleading Congress about the pandemic’s origins and the U.S.-funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, as NPR reported.
Days before the hearing, Paul released more than 1,000 pages of Fauci’s pandemic-era daily entries, which he said showed a gap between what Fauci believed privately and what he told the public. Fauci read a prepared statement before declining to answer further questions.
“Although it pains me to do so, because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of
government, and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress, under the advice of my
attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from
answering your questions,” Fauci said, according to NPR.
Tensions escalated when Senator Paul ordered Capitol Police to remove one of Fauci’s attorneys, David Schertler, from the hearing room after Schertler spoke without being recognized by the committee.
“This testimony is from Anthony Fauci. This is not a game with his lawyers,” Paul said, according to Al Jazeera.
Other Democrats focused less on Fauci himself than on what the hearing signaled for public health workers. Sen. Andy Kim pointed to the broader pattern of firings and funding cuts across federal health agencies.
It is creating “a chilling effect for the next generation of people who might consider stepping up to serve our nation, to be the next generation of researchers who now are wondering whether or not this is the right thing for them to do at a time when they see some of their colleagues, or those that they looked up to, being attacked,” Kim said, according to NPR.
That concern extended beyond lawmakers. Nicole Huberfeld, a health law professor at Boston University, said the hearing fits into a broader devaluing of public health leadership that will make the field’s work harder and erode public trust.
Similarly, Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, connected the hearing to a risk facing his entire field.
“If you’re going to be threatened by members of Congress, you’re going to be a lot less willing to be frank and speak truth to power and give people the information that they desperately need to make decisions,” Benjamin said, according to NPR.
Jon Wiener, UCI Professor Emeritus of History and longtime contributor to The Nation, rejected the hearing’s premise outright. He pointed out that Fauci has testified before Congress more than 200 times throughout his career, and called him “a hero for his lifesaving work on COVID-19.”
“Rand Paul’s hearing was political theater, not scientific inquiry,” Wiener said in an email to New University.
The scientific question underlying the hearing remains unresolved. A World Health Organization advisory group concluded in a June 2025 report that the weight of evidence favors a natural, zoonotic origin of the virus, though it did not rule out a lab-related incident.
U.S. intelligence agencies remain divided. After the FBI concluded a lab-related origin as more likely, the CIA reached a similar finding with low confidence, while other agencies and the National Intelligence Council lean toward a natural spillover event or remain undecided, according to Al Jazeera.
The hearing was not the administration’s first move against someone in Fauci’s orbit. David Morens, a former senior adviser to Fauci, was indicted in April on charges of concealing records related to the pandemic’s origins, according to STAT News. Fauci has denied any knowledge of Morens’ conduct.
The committee’s contempt vote and the unresolved legal fight over whether Fauci can still be compelled to answer are expected to play out in the coming weeks.
Aadya Mishra is a News Intern for the summer 2026 quarter. She can be reached at aadyam2@uci.edu.
Edited by Anika Denny.
