Senate committee votes to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress

The Republican-led Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted Thursday morning to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress following their hearing last week on the COVID-19 pandemic response and related issues.

The committee chaired by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., voted 8-5 along party lines regarding the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director, who invoked the Fifth Amendment 111 times during his tense, three-hour testimony on July 29.

Paul said in his opening statement that the contempt vote was not concerned with Fauci’s past policies or opinions, but rather whether a pardoned witness could refuse a committee order to provide testimony.

“We are voting on whether a witness who has received the benefit of a sweeping federal pardon can be ordered by this committee to answer questions and then defy that order without consequence,” Paul said.

Paul also acknowledged the irreparable professional, educational and spiritual damage that the government’s COVID-19 response and vaccine mandates had on many people.

“More than a million Americans died from COVID. Many of them died alone,” he said. “Workers were forced to choose between a mandate and job they needed. Businesses closed and never reopened. Children lost years of school they will never get back. Americans lost the freedom to work, to worship and to decide what went into their own bodies.”

“Nothing we do today can undo those losses, but silence does not honor them either,” he added.

More than a million Americans died during COVID, many of whom died alone. Businesses were shattered. And people were forced to choose between complying with vaccine mandates or losing their jobs.

Refusing to answer questions about what took place does not honor those we lost,…

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) August 6, 2026

Paul and the other seven Republican senators of the committee voted in favor of contempt, which included Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Rick Scott of Florida, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Bernie Moreno of Ohio, Joni Ernst of Iowa and Ashley Moody of Florida.

When Moreno, who drew widespread media attention for his emotional rebuke of Fauci last week, was asked for his vote, he said, “On behalf of the millions of people harmed by Anthony Fauci, resoundingly yes.”

BREAKING: Watch the moment the Senate Homeland Security Committee votes to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt after the former NIAID director invoked the Fifth Amendment 111 times during congressional hearing on COVID accountability. pic.twitter.com/ESGP1trQfg

— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 6, 2026

Five Democratic senators and two proxies voted against the contempt resolution, including ranking member Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., whose opening remarks condemned the resolution as a dangerous precedent that weakens congressional oversight by encouraging future witnesses to resist legitimate inquiries.

“If this committee now seeks to punish a witness for asserting their constitutional [sic] protected Fifth Amendment rights, future witnesses will argue that appearing before Congress exposes them to punishment, regardless of whether they comply with the subpoena and invoke a constitutional protection,” he said.

Paul and proponents of the contempt resolution have argued that Fauci violated the law by invoking the Fifth Amendment because of his sweeping, preemptive presidential pardon from former President Joe Biden, which covered potential federal offenses from Jan. 1, 2014, to Jan. 19, 2025.

During remarks at last week’s hearing, Hawley said Fauci has no Fifth Amendment privilege under the pardon, citing U.S. Supreme Court precedent in the landmark case Brown v. Walker. The 1896 decision ruled that Congress can constitutionally compel a witness to testify by granting them statutory immunity from criminal prosecution, and that doing so does not violate the Fifth Amendment.

Paul told reporters after the resolution that the committee intended to “hand-deliver it today to the attorney general, and we will hand-deliver it today to the District of Columbia, to the U.S. attorney there.”

David Schertler, Fauci’s attorney who was ejected from the hearing last week for his repeated interruptions, condemned the resolution in a statement as “a continuation of Senator Paul’s personal vendetta against Dr. Fauci, who spent 50 years in public health and has saved countless lives.”

“It is shameful and wrong that Senator Paul is abusing his power by trying to weaponize the Justice Department against an honorable public servant,” he argued.

The resolution is the latest in a years-long partisan conflict over the origins of COVID-19, U.S. research funding related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, government measures during the pandemic and Fauci’s prior congressional testimony.

Fauci has consistently denied allegations of misconduct regarding research funding or his guidance related to the pandemic.