The hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday marked the first time Fauci appeared before Congress in two years.
In his opening remarks, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases voiced his belief that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), chair of the committee, was only holding the hearing in an effort to get him " behind bars."
"Given Senator Paul's obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently is publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me — 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 behind bars,'" Fauci stated.
"Therefore, although it pains me to do so because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress, under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions," he added.
Paul argued that Fauci was compelled to answer questions from the committee and several GOP members claimed that he had no Fifth Amendment rights when it came to the topic they were discussing due to him receiving a sweeping pardon from former President Biden.
When Fauci's attorney, David Schertler, vocally defended his decision to invoke the Fifth Amendment, Paul had him removed from the room after several warnings.
Undaunted, Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment rights 111 times throughout the three-hour hearing, not even answering rhetorical questions posed to him by Republicans, like when Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) asked him what day of the week it was.
Following the hearing, Paul said he planned to hold a vote in the committee next week on whether to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress.
"The question of contempt will be voted on and there's a question if the DOJ will take that up. I've recommended before for his criminal prosecution but neither the Biden or Trump DOJ have taken it up," Paul told reporters.
