Fauci Pleaded the Fifth Over 100 Times — Now Rand Paul Is Coming for Him With a Contempt Vote

Anthony Fauci showed up to a Senate hearing Tuesday with a security detail, sat down at the witness table, read his opening statement — and then invoked the Fifth Amendment over 100 times. The man who made 250 congressional appearances over his career, who spent four years on television declaring himself the embodiment of science, refused to answer a single substantive question about anything he did.

Rand Paul isn’t done with him. Not even close.

Paul announced immediately after the hearing that a contempt vote is coming next week in committee. His argument is legally sound and deserves to be understood clearly: Fauci accepted a sweeping preemptive pardon from Joe Biden covering his NIH work going back years. The whole point of a pardon is to remove criminal jeopardy. If there is no criminal jeopardy, there is no legitimate basis to claim the Fifth Amendment — because the right against self-incrimination only applies when your answers might actually incriminate you. Fauci has been immunized from exactly that. His refusal to answer is therefore not a constitutional protection. It’s obstruction dressed in constitutional language.