Former NIAID Director Anthony Fauci’s refusal to answer questions from Congress extended to simple facts, including the day of the week and the color of the tie he was wearing.
Fauci, 85, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination about as many times as his years alive on Earth, despite Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., asserting that he did not have that right given his current legal status.
Hawley cited a Supreme Court case from 1896, where President Benjamin Harrison’s appointee, Justice Henry Brown, ruled that a witness granted statutory immunity from prosecution could nonetheless be compelled to testify because his immunity displaced pleading the Fifth.
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In that case, an auditor for a Pittsburgh railroad unsuccessfully challenged a contempt charge for refusing to answer grand jury questions.
Hawley turned to Fauci and tested his repeated Fifth Amendment invocations throughout the hearing, quipping, "Doc, let’s try something."
"What day of the week is it today?" Hawley asked Wednesday.
Fauci replied with his boilerplate invocation of the Fifth Amendment.
"What color tie are you wearing?" Hawley asked.
Fauci declined to answer, again invoking the Fifth Amendment.
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"Let's just get one thing straight. You don't have any rights under the Fifth Amendment because you've been pardoned, as you very well know," he said, invoking the 1896 Brown v. Walker case.
Hawley, who is also an attorney, added that the legal reality was likely why Fauci’s remaining attorneys were "shifting nervously" behind him.
A top Fauci attorney, David Schertler, had previously been ejected by Paul after refusing to take his assigned seat and remain quiet.
"This isn't about the law. This is about contempt, contempt for this body and contempt for the American people," Hawley said.
"But I think I know why you're doing it. It's because you don't want to answer questions. It's because you did all kinds of terrible things. It's because during the pandemic, you got rich… while people were dying."
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Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, followed Hawley with similar questions that Fauci refused to answer.
Moreno said Fauci should know what the Fifth Amendment is if he wanted to invoke it dozens of times.
When he asked Fauci to recite the Fifth Amendment, Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right.
"No, I’m just asking you what it says," Moreno repeated.
"On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution," Fauci said once more.
Moreno then gave a copy of the Constitution to an aide and instructed him to bring it to Fauci to read.
That attempt also prompted the same repeated response from the octogenarian immunologist.
"So you're invoking a right that you don't know who wrote it or what it says? Is that correct?" Moreno quipped.
Fauci again invoked his Fifth Amendment right after declining to recite the amendment when asked.
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Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner later discussed the legal implications of Fauci's repeated Fifth Amendment invocations.
She cited President Joe Biden’s blanket, retroactive pardon against Fauci, saying that he is "protected from any offenses against the United States he may have taken part in."
Faulkner said the pardon does not cover state criminal prosecutions, future crimes or congressional investigations.
"It does not protect him from prosecution from perjury if he lies under oath after receiving the pardon," she said.
