Rather than simply declining to answer, Fauci opened the hearing with a pointed statement accusing Paul of weaponizing the proceeding against him. He cited Paul’s “obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me,” and the senator’s decision to publicly release more than 1,000 pages of Fauci’s personal pandemic-era diary over the preceding weekend.

Biden issued Fauci a preemptive, unconditional pardon in the final hours of his administration, covering any offenses connected to his NIAID directorship and pandemic-response roles for a decade-long window running from January 1, 2014, through January 19, 2025. That clemency, however, does not extend to statements Fauci makes now, and Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee argued that is precisely this that loophole Fauci is trying to avoid by refusing to testify. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer told Fox News that “Biden’s pardon doesn’t cover Dr. Fauci’s testimony this week and if he continues to lie, he must be held accountable.”

“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,'” Fauci said, adding that “any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion.” He said invoking the Fifth “pains” him given his “decades-long record of cooperating with Congress,” but that he would do so under the advice of his attorneys.

Republicans push back on the legal basis

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) directly challenged the constitutional footing of Fauci’s strategy, telling him he does not possess any rights under the Fifth Amendment due to his pardon from Biden, and that invoking the 1896 Supreme Court precedent Brown v. Walker to argue a pardoned witness cannot “stand upon his privilege.” Paul similarly warned that Fauci’s Biden-era pardon “will not shield him from legal action for obstructing Congress,” and that the panel would consider next steps, including a possible contempt referral, after Fauci refused dozens of questions on gain-of-function funding, Wuhan lab oversight, and intelligence-community coordination.

The hearing also produced a dramatic sideshow when Paul ordered Fauci’s attorney, David Schertler, removed from the room after he repeatedly tried to speak without being recognized. Paul noted that Fauci would still have “the advice of the other half a dozen attorneys” he brought with him.

Questions Fauci wouldn’t touch

Across the hearing, Fauci declined to answer on a consistent set of flashpoints:

• Rationale for NIH funding of coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and whether it met the definition of gain-of-function work.
• Whether the CIA transferred funds to NIH, or whether NIH coordinated research with intelligence agencies.
• Whether he still endorses his past defense of Ron Fouchier’s ferret-transmissible avian flu experiment, in which Fauci had written that “even if a pandemic should occur, the knowledge is worth the risks”.
• Awareness of alleged gain-of-function work on monkeypox at Fort Detrick and any classified biodefense special-access programs.

Political stakes ahead

The hearing arrives amid renewed scrutiny of pandemic-origins theories, with U.S. intelligence agencies including the CIA, FBI and Department of Energy having assessed a lab-origin explanation as “more likely than not,” even as a 2024 House GOP subcommittee found no direct evidence Fauci acted improperly. Paul, who has indeed publicly said that Fauci belongs in prison, now faces a decision on whether to pursue contempt or obstruction proceedings — a move that would test whether a presidential pardon can truly insulate a witness who refuses to answer a lawfully issued subpoena.

For this story, Fortune journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.