The Senate Homeland Security Committee voted on August 6, 2026, to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress over his incorrect invocation of the Fifth Amendment during a hearing held last week in which the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases refused to answer questions while providing testimony.
“Holding a witness in contempt is a serious thing, and it should be rare,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who is the committee’s chairman, said as the panel gathered to discuss the matter. “But the contempt power exists for precisely this circumstance,” he added. The committee, led by Republicans, voted 8 to 5 on the resolution to hold Fauci in contempt.
Unsurprisingly, all of the Democrats on the committee, including two who cast their vote by proxy, opposed the measure. Typically, the next step in the process would be to hold a vote on the Senate floor. However, Paul spoke with CBS News and stated that he intends to send the contempt resolution straight to the Justice Department as a referral.
According to the report from CBS News, Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment, which guarantees the right of a citizen not to provide testimony that could be self-incriminating, to every single question he was asked during the hearing. The former health official was appearing under subpoena as part of the panel’s investigation into the origins of the COVID virus.
“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 about Paul. The Kentucky Republican explained that Fauci could not invoke the Fifth Amendment because he is already protected from prosecution by a pardon from former President Joe Biden.
Fauci’s lawyer said that he had “solid legal ground” for pleading the Fifth, but Paul says that it’s a legal question that has yet to be settled. “We only have one question: Whether to hold a witness responsible for his contempt toward Congress,” Paul went on to say. “The witness had many chances to answer the questions pertinent to our investigation, and he made his decision 111 times.”
While most contempt of Congress resolutions are usually sent to the Senate after a committee’s consideration, Paul told reporters this step isn’t required by law. “We will send it to the Department of Justice tomorrow so there’s no delay,” Sen. Paul went on to say. “That will be a committee recommendation.”
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He then explained that the full Senate could also conduct a vote after the chamber comes back from its August recess, which he said would be a matter decided upon by Republican leaders. However, by sending the recommendation to the DOJ, there might not be a point in taking a vote on the matter, depending on what action is taken by the department. It’s worth noting that the 60-vote threshold required to hold Fauci in contempt would likely fail with only 53 Republicans in the upper chamber.
Featured Image: screenshot from embedded video