US Senate panel votes to hold top Covid expert Fauci in contempt

A Republican-led US Senate committee on Thursday voted to hold the country's former top infectious diseases official Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress, in an escalation of efforts to blame him for potential Covid-19 pandemic missteps.

On the advice of his lawyers, Fauci last week had invoked his constitutional right to stay silent to prevent self-incrimination under antagonistic questioning from Republican senators, as they probed him over unsubstantiated claims that the origins of the pandemic were covered up.

The party-line vote advances the extraordinary effort to prosecute the 85-year-old career government scientist, who spent decades as the nation's top expert in infectious diseases.

It stems from an initiative by Republican Senator Rand Paul, who had subpoenaed the now-retired Fauci to testify before the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Prior to the hearing, Paul released thousands of pages of the immunologist's personal diary.

Fauci indicated his lawyers believed Paul intended to entrap him in a slip-up that could result in perjury charges, so Fauci opted to invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to answer.

Paul, the committee's chairman, has signaled he intends to send the panel's recommendation straight to the Justice Department, which can decide whether to take the case.

Contempt resolutions generally go through the full Senate, and bypassing that route would bring fresh scrutiny on accusations that President Donald Trump's administration aims to persecute its perceived political foes.

Democrats on the panel voiced their disdain over the vote, with Senator Gary Peters accusing Paul of a "rushed investigation."

He said the vote could "harm our ability to conduct future investigations and disregards constitutional protections long recognized by the US Senate, all without making a reliable case that there is a legal basis for holding Dr Fauci in contempt."

Paul has charged that under Fauci's watch at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the US-funded "gain-of-function" research in China triggered the spread of Covid-19.

The senator insists Fauci lied about that to Congress, an allegation which he has repeatedly denied.

More than six years after the pandemic's onset, the debate over whether Covid-19 leaked from a lab remains intense. Fauci has maintained that the virus had natural origins, even if he's said he is open to the idea of a lab leak.

Paul now says that Fauci is ineligible for protection under the Fifth Amendment, because former president Joe Biden granted the doctor an unconditional pardon for public service actions dating from 2014 through January 19, 2025.

Republicans say the pardon already protected him from perjury.

But law scholars are split on the issue that opens the door to a murky legal maze pitting the reach of a presidential pardon against the scope of the Fifth Amendment.

Law professor Tracey Maclin of the University of Florida told AFP that if the Senate panel had truly wanted Fauci to speak frankly, they would have offered him immunity.

Several Democrats on Thursday had unsuccessfully pushed for a delay on the vote, arguing that the panel should hear from legal experts.

Two Trump advisers dating to the president's first term, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, served time in prison for failing to comply with congressional subpoenas.

But they did not plead the Fifth, opting instead to refuse to appear.