Fauci pleads the Fifth in Senate hearing about origin of COVID-19 virus

Anthony Fauci, the former top US infectious disease expert, declines to answer questions at a Senate hearing, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and accusing Republican Sen. Rand Paul of an “unhinged” campaign to see him imprisoned.

“Under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the 5th Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions,” Fauci tells the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which Paul chairs, in his opening statement.

The Kentucky Republican has for years called for Fauci to be indicted and accused him of lying to Congress about whether the National Institutes of Health funded “gain-of-function” research in Wuhan, China, and of helping cover up the origins of COVID-19.

Fauci denies both claims and says he has testified truthfully multiple times before Congress on these issues.

“Given Senator 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,” says Fauci, “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 that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars.'”