Covid: Congress accuses Fauci of contempt; he faces a criminal investigation

Anthony Fauci is guilty of contempt of Congress and will, in all likelihood, face a criminal investigation into how the US response to the Covid-19 pandemic was handled. This decision was taken by Republican senators on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, as part of a sort of vendetta against Fauci, one of the world’s leading experts on infectious diseases, who, as a member of the government’s task force, managed the pandemic whilst clashing with Donald Trump and repeatedly contradicting the president, who was then in his first term.

The committee’s vote comes after Fauci, aged 85, invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times during a hearing last week, refusing to answer questions for fear that his statements might be used by Republicans to bring charges against him.

The committee chair, Senator Rand Paul, who has long sought to hold Fauci responsible for the shortcomings in the response to the pandemic, warned that ‘there will be consequences for his refusal to testify’. Yesterday’s vote is, in fact, set to trigger a process that would lead the Department of Justice to consider whether to indict Fauci.

Later that evening, Paul announced that the Commission’s request to recommend that Fauci be charged with contempt of Congress had been delivered by hand today to the Attorney General and the US District Court. “This is a procedure that falls outside the normal legislative process, so it does not have to go before the House, it does not have to be signed by the President and, in fact, it does not even have to be put before the Senate,” said Paul, who did not, however, rule out the possibility of holding a vote in the Senate at a later date.

There are few precedents in which a Senate plenary vote has been bypassed before asking the Department of Justice to bring charges of contempt of Congress. ‘There aren’t many precedents on this matter, but it isn’t a law, so there is no specific procedure to follow. It is a referral, a recommendation,” Paul added. This unusual move could, however, pave the way for subsequent legal challenges and could serve as evidence of the political motivations that drove the Trump administration to attack Fauci.