Dr. Anthony Fauci invokes Fifth Amendment at Senate COVID-19 hearing, calls Rand Paul 'unhinged'

At a highly contentious Senate hearing on July 29, 2026, Dr. Anthony Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment rights more than 100 times, refusing to answer questions from committee Chairman Rand Paul. Fauci accused Paul of an unhinged obsession to put him behind bars, citing Paul's recent release of his 1,100-page personal diary. The hearing escalated when Paul ordered security to eject Fauci's attorney, David Schertler, and threatened Fauci with contempt of Congress. Republicans pressed Fauci on COVID-19 origins and gain-of-function research, while Democrats defended the scientist, calling the session a partisan show trial.

Fauci Fifth Amendment invocation

• ▪Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Rand Paul announced he would call for a vote on August 5, 2026, to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress
• ▪Chairman Rand Paul ordered security to physically remove Dr. Anthony Fauci's attorney, David Schertler, from the committee room after David Schertler attempted to speak on behalf of Dr. Anthony Fauci
• ▪Senator Josh Hawley argued that Dr. Anthony Fauci did not have Fifth Amendment rights because former President Joe Biden had granted Dr. Anthony Fauci a pre-emptive pardon
• ▪Dr. Anthony Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times during the Senate hearing on July 29, 2026
• ▪Dr. Anthony Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and declined to answer questions at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on July 29, 2026

COVID-19 origins debate

• ▪Senator Rand Paul released over 1,100 pages of Dr. Anthony Fauci's private diary entries spanning December 2019 to December 2022, along with a 465-page prequel of documents from 2001 to 2015
• ▪A joint investigation by China and the World Health Organization in February 2021 concluded that COVID-19 likely started in bats and spread to humans via another animal
• ▪U.S. intelligence agencies remained divided on the origins of COVID-19 in an August 2021 report, failing to reach a firm conclusion
• ▪A Republican-led Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic concluded in December 2024 that a laboratory leak was the most likely origin of SARS-CoV-2

Fauci diary entries release

• ▪The U.S. Department of Energy concluded with low confidence in 2023 that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory leak
• ▪Dr. Anthony Fauci's private diary entries contained descriptions of former President Donald Trump as bumbling, incompetent, an idiot, and truly an obnoxious adolescent
• ▪Dr. Anthony Fauci's diary entries from February 1, 2020, detailed a conference call with scientists where Dr. Anthony Fauci noted there was not total agreement regarding the origins of the virus

Lab leak theory evidence

• ▪The Trump administration advanced the theory that the COVID-19 pandemic was caused by a virus escaping from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China
• ▪The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services cut off all federal funding for the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance and its president, Dr. Peter Daszak, in January 2025

EcoHealth Alliance funding controversy

• ▪President Donald Trump restricted federal funding for gain-of-function research through an Executive Order issued in May 2025
• ▪The U.S. government initially stopped funding EcoHealth Alliance's bat coronavirus research project in China at the end of April 2020

Gain-of-function research policy

• ▪The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a policy on July 28, 2026, designed to establish more oversight for high-risk life sciences and gain-of-function research