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A United States Senate panel has voted to hold former health official Anthony Fauci, a key figure in the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in contempt of Congress.
The move on Thursday comes after Fauci last week pleaded the fifth, referring to a constitutional right to remain silent, during a hearing before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Fauci, the former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) had charged the Republican-led hearing was designed to entrap him. He had previously been pre-emptively pardoned by former US President Joe Biden.
Fauci accused the committee head, Republican Senator Rand Paul, of having an “unhinged obsession” with him, arguing he had previously cooperated in several congressional hearings and investigations following the pandemic.
“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 – quote – ‘behind bars,’” Fauci said.
Following the vote on Thursday, the panel could refer Fauci to the Department of Justice for possible criminal prosecution, although the law enforcement agency will ultimately decide whether to move ahead with those charges.
Speaking ahead of Thursday’s vote, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, said there was “virtually no chance that a court would actually approve any contempt because [Fauci] had a well-founded fear of self-incrimination, which entitled him to invoke the Fifth Amendment”.
Rand, meanwhile, argued that Fauci’s decision to deliver an opening statement decrying the hearing, before invoking his fifth amendment right during questioning, showed he was “trying to have it both ways”.
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