Anthony Fauci invokes fifth amendment right not to answer questions in Senate hearing on Covid-19 – live

Key events

Gary Peters, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said in closing that the Anthony Fauci hearing today “does real damage” by turning one person into a “scapegoat” for a pandemic that hundreds of officials hold responsibility for.

Peters noted that Fauci has faced repeated death threats.

“This is only going to unfortunately deter other scientific experts from public service, to understand that this is what they would have to go through as they provide their advice to us,” Peters said.

An attorney for Anthony Fauci, seated beside him at the hearing room table, repeatedly tried to interject after Rand Paul wrapped his questioning, drawing the ire of Paul, who eventually directed security to remove the attorney.

Paul said the attorneys were allowed to be in the room, but not to testify, and the attorney was directed not to sit at the table but did so anyway.

“This is the way Anthony Fauci wants to be remembered for a lawyer not listening to the rules,” Paul said before directing security to remove the attorney. “Let the record state that Dr. Fauci will still have the advice of the other half a dozen attorneys that he brought along today.”

After asking repeated questions to Anthony Fauci over lab activities in Wuhan, China, US senator Rand Paul said there “would be repercussions” for Fauci’s refusal to answer questions based on his Fifth Amendment rights.

“The chairman has denied your assertion of privilege and directed you to answer. But you nonetheless refuse and stand on privilege despite the existence of the pardon,” Paul said referring to Joe Biden’s preemptive pardon of Fauci. “The committee will have to consider after this hearing what appropriate action should be taken against you for the failure to testify after being directed to do so. It’s against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress. There will be repercussions to your refusal to testify today.”

Senator Rand Paul is now questioning Anthony Fauci, who is repeatedly responding that he is declining to answer based upon his rights under the Fifth Amendment.

Early on in the questioning, Paul noted there was a red folder on Fauci’s table in the hearing room with a copy of a piece of US code that makes it a crime for a witness appearing under subpoena, as Fauci is, to refuse to answer questions pertinent to an inquiry.

“Do you have that in front of you?” Paul asked Fauci.

Fauci responded that he was declining to answer based on the Fifth Amendment.

“Let the record show that the witness has refused to answer whether there’s a folder in front of him based on his Fifth Amendment right,” Paul said.

Fauci invokes fifth amendment right not to answer questions

Anthony Fauci, the former veteran director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid), invoked the Fifth Amendment during a hearing before the US Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

During his long history in the government, he many times appeared before committee’s for hearings and respects the value of oversight.

“However, 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, 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, unquote,” Fauci said.

“Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion,” he said.

“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.”

Gary Peters, the Democratic ranking member on the homeland security committee, said that the committee has a long history of bipartisan inquiry and oversight, and the subject matter of risky research and the origins of covid-19 are a legitimate area to study.

But today’s hearing with Anthony Fauci was not an example of that, Peters said.

He noted that Rand Paul, the Republican chairman of the committee, has called for Fauci to be arrested and fired while using Fauci to fundraise and help sell his book. He said Paul had also blocked Democrats out from the committee’s inquiry “in order to support his pre-drawn conclusions”.

“One-sided investigations designed to validate predetermined conclusions do not serve the American people, who sent us to actually undercover the truth and to solve problems,” Peters said.

Paul called the contention that Democrats were excluded “categorically false” and said Democrats were uninterested in participating.

Peters also went through other areas the committee has not looked into in favor of “relitigating the past” and said the massive cuts to public health and the federal workforce have made the country more vulnerable to future pandemics and disease outbreaks.

“Unfortunately, I fear the intent of this hearing is only meant to further a purely partisan agenda, and will not – it will not – make Americans safer,” Peters said.

Rand Paul, the Republican senator from Kentucky who is leading the hearing with Anthony Fauci, is focusing in on the origins of covid-19 and whether it could have originated via a lab leak, a longtime theory on the right.

Paul has repeatedly said it was dangerous or risky for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to fund research in Wuhan, China, and that Fauci had a conflict of interest in leading the pandemic response when his agency was involved in such research. He contended that privately, Fauci entertained the idea of a lab leak, while publicly he shot down the idea.

Some background from Guardian reporter Jessica Glenza on the lab leak theory:

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 2025 that served as a rationale for defunding the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

A 2024 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.

Anthony Fauci testimony gets under way

Anthony Fauci’s testimony before the US Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has now begun, with US senator Rand Paul offering opening remarks admonishing Fauci for his role in leading the Covid-19 response.

As a reminder, Paul released diary entries from Fauci that Paul says show discrepancies between his public stances and private beliefs. Those will factor heavily into the hearing today.

“The American people deserve answers,” Paul said. “Frankly, the American people deserve an apology.”

Biden pardon will not cover Fauci's hearing, says Comer

Former president Joe Biden’s presidential pardon does not cover Anthony Fauci’s awaited hearing at Capitol Hill, the House Oversight Committee chairman has said.

Republican James Comer told Fox News Digital:

Americans are still reaping the consequences of Dr Fauci’s actions.

Biden’s pardon doesn’t cover Dr Fauci’s testimony this week and if he continues to lie, he must be held accountable.

Fauci, the former top US infectious disease expert, is scheduled to testify on today under a subpoena from its ⁠chairman and longtime critic, ⁠senator Rand Paul.

Leading up to the hearing, Paul released more than a thousand pages of Fauci’s personal diary covering the pandemic years.

Pointing to some notes about early efforts at understanding how the virus emerged, Paul wrote on the social media platform X that what Fauci “wrote privately and what he told the country are two different stories.”

“We now know why president Biden gave a blanket pardon to Dr Fauci. While obsessing about his own fame, Dr. Fauci wasn’t truthful with the American people about the origins of Covid and advised schools to be closed,” Comer added.

Fauci expressed disillusionment with ‘rambling, crazy’ Trump in journal

Diary entries released by a Republican senator in an attempt to damage Anthony Fauci also show the former top US government science adviser’s growing disillusionment with Donald Trump in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, branding the president “rambling”, “crazy”, “desperate”, “bumbling”, “incompetent”, “an idiot”, “a true embarrassment”, “totally nuts” and “truly an obnoxious adolescent”.

From the earliest days of the crisis six years ago, Fauci noted in his journal challenging interactions with the publicity-fixated Trump. On 27 February 2020, amid the first stirrings of public alarm, he wrote of a surprise late-night call, in which the US president “wanted to chat about the coronavirus situation in general”.

For “about 20-25 minutes”, Fauci wrote, he “encouraged [Trump] not to underplay the seriousness of the situation since if it turns out bad, it would look like he is covering up. I even spoke to him from a political standpoint that his chances for re-election might be more damaged if he downplayed the potential spread of virus in the USA than if he said we may face serious problems and even if the Stock Market goes down further, he was at least honest and the country would respect him for it.

“I thought that he heard what I said, but the next day, he again underplayed it.”

By 14 March, in the thick of the first Covid shutdowns, Fauci is bemoaning Trump’s fixation on “the fluff of ratings and publicity. And so he wants us to do 2 press conferences/day – one in AM and one in PM … We now will have no time to do work.”

Roque Planas

A White House teleprompter operator who reportedly used inside knowledge to make bets about Donald Trump’s speeches on the online prediction market Kalshi is no longer in his post, according to a White House official.

The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly about the personnel matter and spoke on condition of anonymity, said on Tuesday that Gabriel Perez “no longer works in the federal government”.

The official would not say whether Perez resigned or was fired.

The White House confirmed earlier this month that Perez had been placed on unpaid leave after ABC News reported he had used his inside knowledge to win more than $100,000 betting on what the president would say in big speeches, including his State of the Union address earlier this year.

That figure is more than half the $175,000 salary he earned for his teleprompter work, according to White House personnel records.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had described the reports of the insider trading as “deeply unfortunate and, frankly, a disgrace”.

Uwa Ede-Osifo

ICE agents deployed last summer to the Los Angeles area referred to the subjects of their immigration operations with racial slurs, according to newly released court documents.

On 4 July 2025, an unidentified agent wrote in a text chain, “btw tonks everywhere selling food for the 4th festivities in long beach right now”, invoking an anti-immigrant slur, which the US border patrol has previously warned against.

In a different string of messages sent on 2 July 2025, an agent wrote: “Some of these people are stupid. Why would you post on social media that you’re wet,” using the abbreviated version of a slur long used to denigrate undocumented Mexicans who cross into the US by the Rio Grande, a river stretching from Colorado into the Gulf of Mexico.

“Tonks” and “wet” also appeared in other correspondence.

The slurs were made public on Monday in a motion filed for a case five men brought against the Trump administration in June 2025, alleging that the stop-and-arrest practices of ICE agents during the Los Angeles raids were unlawful.

Lawyers for the men have requested that a federal judge bar any further detention stops based on race or socioeconomic status.

In June 2025, three of the men filing the lawsuit were arrested while waiting at a bus stop to be picked up for work. A fourth plaintiff had his arm twisted and was pushed against a gate during questioning by masked immigration agents, even as he explained he was a US citizen.

Joseph Gedeon

Donald Trump hosted back-to-back White House meetings with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, as Ukraine seeks more firepower for its air defenses and the Israeli prime minister tries to repair his strained relationship with the US president.

Trump described both meetings in positive terms on social media Tuesday evening, remaining vague about what was discussed.

“Had a very good meeting!” Trump said of his sit-down with Netanyahu. “Obviously, many important subjects were discussed.” He posted a similar statement about his time with Zelenskyy, writing the “meeting went very well!”

It was Netanyahu’s first visit to the Oval Office since he and Trump launched their joint military campaign against Iran on 28 February.

Netanyahu’s relationship with Trump has been complicated in recent weeks by his push to keep fighting Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, even as Trump pursued a diplomatic opening with Tehran.

Tensions between the pair have risen as the war has drifted inconclusively, with Trump calling the Israeli premier “crazy” and declaring: “Without me, there would be no Israel.”

The two men are each facing pressure at home, with Netanyahu in a tough re-election fight, and Trump under pressure to end an unpopular war that has pushed up prices before November’s midterms.

Scientists have scrambled to Anthony Fauci’s defense ahead of the unusual hearing, the second time the longtime National Institutes of Health scientist has been before Congress to discuss pandemic origins since leaving the government in 2022.

While the Covid-19 pandemic introduced him to millions of Americans, he talked the nation through numerous outbreaks over decades, including HIV, Ebola and the 2001 anthrax attacks, while advising seven presidents.

In a public letter, more than 150 infectious disease experts and other scientists wrote that “no credible evidence has been produced to support these absurd charges” and that they are “urging our elected representatives in Congress stop these witch-hunts.”

“The charges against Dr Fauci are baseless, suggesting he covered up the origins of Covid, that he bribed or persuaded other scientists to join his cover-up, that Niaid-funded research sparked the pandemic, that he personally holds patents on the virus, and that he’s working with intelligence agencies to suppress the true story of the pandemic,” the letter stated.

“No credible evidence has been produced to support these absurd charges.”

The letter added that the allegations and accusations about Fauci have led to “five-year period of harassment and threats of violence directed at Dr Fauci and his family”.

Fauci to face questions from Senate Republicans over pandemic origins

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Senators are expected to question Anthony Fauci, the former veteran director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid), about whether the Covid-19 virus began as a “lab leak” in a high-profile hearing later today.

Fauci, who served as a key adviser to Donald Trump and Joe Biden on the Covid-19 pandemic, will give testimony as part of a longtime Republican investigation into the origins of the pandemic, led by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.

Fauci will likely be quizzed about whether the Covid-19 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-19 and risky taxpayer-funded life science research”, scientists have characterized Paul’s investigation as “vilification and harassment” of Fauci, who led Niaid for 38 years before retiring in 2022.

“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 85, served under seven US presidents and through numerous health crises, including HIV, Ebola and the first coronavirus outbreak, called Sars-CoV-1. He became a household name overnight when the Covid-19 pandemic halted social life in 2020.

Anthony Fauci testifies during a House select subcommittee on coronavirus in 2024 Photograph: Mariam Zuhaib/AP

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 2025 that served as a rationale for defunding the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Read the full story here:

In other developments:

• Donald Trump met Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, before giving the eulogy at the funeral of Lindsey Graham.

• The US Senate voted to confirm Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence, installing Donald Trump’s pick in the role despite his lack of prior experience with intelligence and concerns that he will be “Trump’s election conspiracy wingman”.

• With Zelenskyy watching from the Senate gallery, the US Senate voted 86 to 12 to advance the “Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act”.

• Democratic senators said that they would work to eliminate the expansive tariff authority the sanctions bill would give Trump.

• Zelenskyy told Fox News ⁠on Tuesday that Trump had, again, agreed to allow Ukraine to manufacture its own Patriot air defense interceptors to defend against Russian ballistic missile attacks.