Anthony Fauci, who served as a key adviser to Donald Trump and Joe Biden during the Covid-۱۹ pandemic, has refused to answer questions at a high-profile congressional hearing, accusing a Republican senator of having an “unhinged obsession” with him.
Fauci, the veteran former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid), invoked his constitutional right against incrimination when appearing before a Senate committee on Wednesday.
Fauci said Republican Kentucky senator Rand Paul had, who called the hearing, led a years-long investigation into himself and the origins of the pandemic aimed at “embarrassing and intimidating me”.
“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 of the constitution to refrain from answering your questions,” Fauci said in his opening statement.
Senators are expected to question Fauci about whether the Covid-۱۹ virus began as a “lab leak”, a claim virologists have argued is unlikely.
While Republicans have characterized their work as investigating “the origins of Covid-۱۹ and risky taxpayer-funded life science research”, scientists have characterized Paul’s investigation as “vilification and harassment” of Fauci, who led Niaid for ۳۸ years before retiring in ۲۰۲۲.
“For years, Americans were told a lab origin wasn’t just unlikely – it was dismissed outright by the very people funding and reviewing this research,” Paul, who chairs the Senate committee on homeland security and governmental affairs, where Fauci is scheduled to testify, said last week.
Fauci, who is ۸۵, served under seven US presidents and through numerous health crises, including the HIV crisis, Ebola outbreaks and the first coronavirus outbreak, called Sars-CoV-۱. He became a household name overnight when the Covid-۱۹ pandemic halted social life in ۲۰۲۰.
The “lab leak” theory has since gained significant traction in Republican circles. In just one example, the White House published a treatise on the theory in April ۲۰۲۵ that served as a rationale for defunding the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
A ۲۰۲۴ survey of virologists from the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute found that most believed the pandemic began as a so-called spillover event, or a virus jumping from an infected animal to a human. Similarly, a group of virologists argued in the Journal of Virology that the “preponderance” of evidence points to a spillover, even as the “lab leak” theory received outsized attention.
The scheduled hearing comes just days after Paul released what he described as Fauci’s “diary”, a more than ۱,۱۰۰-page document characterized as revealing Fauci’s inner conflicts about the lab leak theory. Scientists have said this is a normal part of reaching scientific opinion.
The diary also contained entries about Trump, who he advised closely during the early days of the pandemic. He described the president as “rambling”, “crazy”, “desperate”, “bumbling”, “incompetent”, “an idiot”, “a true embarrassment”, “totally nuts” and “truly an obnoxious adolescent”.
