Top “expert” during pandemic accuses Republican senator of maintaining an ‘unhinged obsession’ with him.

The United States’s top infectious-diseases expert during the Covid-19 pandemic refused to answer any questions in a hearing before Congress.

Dr Anthony Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times in response to all questions while appearing before the Senate homeland security committee. 

He accused its chairman, Republican Senator Rand Paul, of having an “unhinged obsession” with him.

The Fifth Amendment allows individuals to remain silent under questioning to protect against self-incrimination in the US. Dr Fauci said that Mr Paul was attempting to get him to commit perjury in the hope that he would end up “behind bars”.

The hearing was widely expected to be a clash between Mr Paul and Dr Fauci, who retired as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 2022 after a 50-year career in public science.

Mr Paul has long criticised Dr Fauci, becoming his chief antagonist in Congress. The retired scientist featured on the cover of Mr Paul’s 2023 book Deception: he Great Covid Cover-Up.

Dr Fauci received a pre-emptive pardon from Joe Biden, the former US president, so he would be immune from prosecution for actions he took while in office.

But before the hearing, Mr Paul warned Dr Fauci he could go to prison for perjury if he lied before Congress.

Instead, Dr Fauci said that on the advice of counsel, he would not be answering any questions.

Dr Fauci said: “Given Senator Paul’s obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me... the only conclusion I can reach is the sole reason he’s calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledge I could end up ‘behind bars’.

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

During his opening statement, Mr Paul said that Dr Fauci publicly claimed that Covid-19 occurred naturally but in private had a “mountain of evidence” that it could have begun in a laboratory in Wuhan, China.

At the weekend, Mr Paul released more than 1,000 pages of Dr Fauci’s personal diaries from the pandemic.

The diaries revealed that in January 2020 Dr Fauci did not believe that Covid-19 originated in a “wet market” in China, but publicly said the disease occurred naturally.

Mr Paul accused Dr Fauci of “aiding and abetting the crime” of Covid-19 lockdowns, claiming the measures would not have been implemented without his input.

After 45 minutes of repeated refusals, Mr Paul warned Dr Fauci there would be “repercussions” for his failure to testify.

Mr Paul said that the committee would vote next week on holding Mr Fauci in contempt. If the vote is successful, the matter could be turned over to the department of justice for criminal prosecution.

“Because you refuse to answer, ‌citing a privilege ⁠that is unsupported, because of your ⁠pardon, and after being denied to do so, this committee ‌is scheduled to vote next week ⁠on ⁠a resolution certifying your contempt,” Mr Paul said.

When one of Dr Fauci’s lawyers tried to speak, Mr Paul said he was not allowed and ordered security to throw him out, prompting applause in the chamber.

Mr Paul also previously released emails from Dr Fauci in 2020 in which he told Dr Francis Collins, then director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH): “Please delete this email after you read it.”

During the hearing on Wednesday, Mr Paul said Dr Fauci told his colleagues to delete emails because his “primary concern was avoiding culpability”.

Donald Trump also took aim at Dr Fauci, saying his ideas during the pandemic were “crazy”.

“I said from the beginning that the Virus came from the Wuhan Laboratory in China. Fauci strongly disagreed, always trying to protect China. I inherited Fauci, who was there since the 1980’s, but with each passing day, relied less and less on him,” Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday.

He claimed that he sidelined Dr Fauci during his first term but accused Mr Biden, his successor, of making the doctor a “king”.

He continued: “I called Biden to tell him Fauci was no good, either didn’t have a clue, or was dishonest. The call was well received, but sadly, not acted on. Biden went on to give Fauci vast destructive power. The rest is history!”

As the hearing grew more ill-tempered, Bernie Moreno, a Republican senator from Ohio, blamed Dr Fauci for a woman being arrested at a middle school American football game in 2020 for not wearing a mask, an incident which made him run for Congress.

Mr Moreno said: “Here I am sitting in front of you six years later, saying, who the f--- do you think you were for doing that?”

Invoked his right to silence

As Dr Fauci continued to stonewall the questioning, Mr Moreno asked one of his aides to give him a small copy of the US Constitution and asked him if he knew what the Fifth Amendment was.

Dr Fauci responded by invoking his right to silence and citing the Fifth Amendment.

In another tense moment, Mr Moreno asked if Dr Fauci thought he was in “deep s---”. 

Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican, told Mr Fauci he had been “so destructive for public health”.

Mr Johnson said it would be “almost impossible” for Dr Fauci to “answer truthfully without demonstrating what you did, your culpability, self-incriminating”.

Senator Rand questioned Dr Fauci on whether the NIH had ever conducted research for the CIA or the office of the Director of National Intelligence to increase the potency of viruses – known as “gain-of-function” work.

“The reason why these questions are important is, President Trump has done a ban, and we’re glad that he did a ban on gain-of-function research,” he said.

“There is still, though, a question [as to] whether or not the intelligence community is adhering to that order. There’s a question of whether or not gain-of-function research is still ongoing.”

Dr Fauci declined to answer.