Senate committee chairman ruled Fauci's Fifth Amendment privilege invalid, moved to hold him in contempt of Congress

On August 4, 2026, Sen. Rand Paul, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released a resolution to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci, the retired director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in contempt of Congress. During a July 29, 2026 hearing, Fauci had invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination more than 100 times under subpoena from Paul's committee. Paul ruled from the chair that Fauci's privilege did not apply because a pardon Fauci received from President Biden in January 2025 covered his pandemic-era conduct, ordered him to answer questions, and warned him about contempt when he continued to decline on his attorneys' advice. In the resolution, Paul wrote that Fauci's continued silence after being ordered to answer amounted to "obstruction of a congressional investigation" and scheduled a committee vote for August 6, 2026, indicating the panel would refer the matter directly to the Department of Justice without waiting for a full Senate vote.

The subpoena and contempt push followed a yearslong Republican investigation aimed at Fauci's role in the COVID-19 pandemic response, including gain-of-function research funding and the pandemic's origins, and came after Paul released more than 1,000 pages of Fauci's personal pandemic-era diary entries in the days before the hearing. Fauci told the committee that Paul had "an unhinged obsession" with him and that the hearing was designed to induce a false statement, but said he would invoke the Fifth Amendment "although it pains me to do so." Separately, on August 5, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Sen. Ron Johnson, obtained a copy of Fauci's government-issued iPhone from the Department of Health and Human Services; a spokesperson for Johnson said the panel hoped it would "address many of the questions [Fauci] refused to answer" at the hearing. That acquisition is a separate action by a different committee and is noted here as context, not as part of the abuse this entry records.

Updates

2026-08-06 — Senate committee voted 8-7 to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress [5, 6]

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 8-7 along party lines on August 6, 2026 to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress. Chairman Paul said he intended to refer the resolution directly to the Justice Department rather than bring it to a full Senate floor vote. Ranking member Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) urged colleagues to reject the resolution, saying "criminal contempt is punitive. It does not compel a witness to answer questions," and warning it would "weaken this committee's ability to compel testimony."