Fauci Invokes the Fifth, Refuses to Answer Questions About COVID-19 Origins After Senator Publishes Diary: ‘Unhinged Obsession’

Fauci denounced Sen. Rand Paul’s “obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution” and “releasing my unredacted personal diary” at a hearing on July 29

NEED TO KNOW

• Dr. Anthony Fauci, the retired infectious disease expert who was one of the nation’s top health officials for four decades, returned to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, July 29, to invoke the Fifth Amendment during a hearing with the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
• Fauci declined to answer questions about COVID-19 after Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul published his “unredacted personal diary”
• Fauci, 85, accused Paul of having an “unhinged obsession” with “calling for my prosecution”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the retired infectious disease expert who was one of the nation’s top health officials for four decades, returned to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, July 29, to invoke the Fifth Amendment and decline to answer questions about COVID-19 after Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul published his “unredacted personal diary.”

Fauci — who led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under seven presidents, beginning in President Ronald Reagan’s administration — accused Paul — a libertarian-leaning Republican and a former practicing eye doctor — of having an “unhinged obsession” with him.

“Given Sen. Paul’s obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me and, recently, his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me,” Fauci, 85, said in his opening remarks, “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.’ ”

“Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion,” Fauci added, noting he would “invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution” to every question on Wednesday under advice from his attorneys.

At the end of his opening statement before Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on the COVID-19 Pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci invokes the Fifth Amendment. pic.twitter.com/5A6UXxFrin

— CSPAN (@cspan) July 29, 2026

Moments later, Paul ordered security to escort one of Fauci’s attorneys, David Schertler, from the hearing room after he repeatedly tried to speak on Fauci’s behalf. 

According to The New York Times, the immunologist was accompanied by other attorneys and his own personal security team.

The Trump administration stripped Fauci of his government security detail when President Donald Trump returned to office last year after Fauci said he and his family have been subjected to years of “violent and sexual explicit threats.”

As part of congressional Republicans’ investigations into the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave Paul and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson copies of Fauci’s typewritten diaries, Kennedy said on Fox News on Tuesday, July 28.

Fauci also said in his opening statement on Wednesday that across his 54 years of service at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and 38 years as NIAID director, he testified in front of or briefed the Senate and House more than 200 times, including multiple times in recent years when he has publicly sparred with Paul.

In 2021, Paul accused Fauci of lying to Congress during a hearing, and Fauci responded by telling the Kentucky Republican “you do not know what you’re talking about, quite frankly. And I want to say that officially, you do not know what you’re talking about.”

On Wednesday, Fauci repeatedly invoked the Fifth as the hearing before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which Paul chairs, unfolded.

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican, asked Fauci to name the day of the week, the color of his tie and the color of the hearing room’s carpet. Fauci invoked the Fifth in response to every question. 

“This hearing is designed to entrap you,” said New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat on the committee.

The day before he left office in January 2025, former President Joe Biden issued a pre-emptive pardon for Fauci — who spearheaded the nation’s COVID-19 response during Trump’s first term and the first two years of Biden’s administration — after Trump, Kennedy and other Republicans called for his prosecution over grievances based on his handling of the pandemic response and virology research in the years leading up to COVID-19’s origins.

But that pardon only covered Fauci’s actions up to Jan. 19, 2025. Any alleged federal crime that occurred after that date — including allegations of lying under oath, a felony — would be fair game for Trump’s Justice Department. 

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“I called Biden to tell him Fauci was no good, either didn’t have a clue, or was dishonest. The call was well received, but sadly, not acted on,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. “Biden went on to give Fauci vast destructive power. The rest is history!”

While Fauci has become a villain on the U.S. right, he was long heralded by presidents of both parties for his service. President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008 for his “efforts to advance the understanding and treatment of HIV/AIDS.”

And Trump himself awarded him a presidential commendation for his “exceptional efforts” in helping produce and distribute the COVID-19 vaccines in 2020. 

In his opening statement on Wednesday, Paul laid out the dispute at the center of his desire to see Fauci “behind bars.”

“Publicly, Anthony Fauci promoted the theory that the virus arose naturally while privately he was well aware of a mountain of evidence suggesting the virus originated in the lab,” in Wuhan, China, Paul said.

Fauci maintains his belief that the virus originated naturally, leaping from bats to humans at some point in late 2019. 

There is some ongoing debate among scientists and U.S. intelligence agencies about whether COVID-19 could have leaked from a virology lab in Wuhan, near where researchers originally traced the disease to a “wet market” where live animals are sold. 

But the claims made by Paul, Kennedy and others in their critiques of Fauci and calls for his prosecution are often baseless or lack any evidence, including claims that Fauci and the NIAID funded “gain of function” research at the Wuhan institute — a type of research that involves genetically modifying viruses to be more contagious or deadlier in the hopes of better understanding and combating them.

Researchers and experts have long debated the merit and safety of such research. Fauci has consistently denied that the NIAID funded such research in Wuhan, a claim which lies at the heart of conspiracy theories boosted by Paul, Kennedy and others.

“Frankly, the American people deserve an apology. I hope today, Dr. Fauci will come clean, admit it was a mistake to fund dangerous research in China, admit that the risk of this dangerous research exceeded any possible benefits,” Paul said on Wednesday. “Ask forgiveness and pledge to help our government devise safeguards, so a man-made epidemic never happens again.”

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