Former top US Covid expert Fauci declines to answer hostile Senate questioning

The former top US infectious disease official on Wednesday faced adversarial questioning from Republican senators about the origins of Covid-19, and on the advice of lawyers invoked his constitutional right not to answer, casting the hearing as a character assassination.

It was the latest twist in the long-running feud between Anthony Fauci, who spent decades as the nation's top expert in infectious disease, and Republican Senator Rand Paul, who insists on unsubstantiated claims that the origins of the pandemic began in a lab and were covered up.

Paul had subpoenaed the now-retired Fauci to testify before the committee, and prior to the hearing released thousands of pages of the immunologist's personal diary.

Citing Paul's "obsession" with him, Fauci said he would invoke the Fifth Amendment, refraining from answering questions to avoid self-incrimination, adding that it "pains me to do so."

Fauci indicated his lawyers believed Paul intended to entrap him in a slip-up that could result in perjury charges.

"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.

Fauci, 85, noted in his opening statement that he had testified before Congress more than 200 times over nearly four decades, saying "I proved that I believe in and respect the value of legitimate congressional oversight."

Paul opened with a tirade against Fauci, repeating accusations that under Fauci's watch at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the US funded so-called "gain-of-function" research in China that triggered the spread of Covid-19.

The senator insists Fauci lied about that to Congress, 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.

Some panel lawmakers criticized the proceedings, including Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan, who said the hearing was designed to "entrap" Fauci.

Paul warned Fauci of "repercussions" for his use of the Fifth Amendment. When Fauci's lawyer attempted to speak on his client's behalf, Paul ordered him removed.

As the approximately three-hour long hearing closed Paul said the committee would vote next week on whether to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress for invoking the Fifth, a process that could open increasingly complicated legal puzzles, not least given former President Joe Biden's preemptive pardon of the government scientist.

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal meanwhile called the proceedings the result of a "vendetta" and that use of the Fifth must be "respected."

Law professor Tracey Maclin of the University of Florida dubbed "nonsensical" any notion that staying silent was a bad look.

"If his lawyers told him to take the Fifth, that's what he should do," Maclin told AFP, emphasizing that invoking the right was not at all an indication of guilt.

Ahead of the doctor's appearance, a group of more than 150 scientists, physicians and public health activists signed an open letter calling on lawmakers to "stop the on-going vilification and harassment" of scientists, while denouncing "absurd" accusations against Fauci.

US President Donald Trump weighed in on Truth Social, saying Fauci's "ideas were CRAZY!" in the pandemic's early days and accusing him of "trying to protect China."

Fauci's diary excerpts don't offer clear evidence regarding Covid's origins. Rather, the text depicts Fauci grappling with the escalating public health crisis as scientific hypotheses were rapidly evolving.

The journal also offers a glimpse into his deteriorating relationship with Trump, whom he advised during the president's first term.

"Trump getting out of control in pushing to open up the country and get the economy back before election day," Fauci wrote in a passage dated May 2020. "He is desperate. This is all about reelection."

The diary traces Fauci's overnight fame, which thrust him into the spotlight as a lifelong bureaucrat-turned-star who enjoyed attention from celebrities.

But he also details pressures that his day job and his notoriety carried.

"The vicious assault on me continues," Fauci wrote on June 6, 2021. "The entire extreme right wing Republican group in the House and Senate have completely sold their soul to the infinitely lying ex-president trump."