Fauci Pleads the Fifth at Senate Hearing on COVID, Escalating Long-Running Clash With Republicans

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime infectious disease expert who helped lead the federal government's response to the COVID pandemic, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination on Wednesday, refusing to answer questions at a Senate hearing that Republicans had hoped would expose him to potential perjury charges and discredit his handling of the nation's pandemic response.Appearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee after being subpoenaed by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, the panel's Republican chairman and one of Fauci's most persistent critics, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases declined to answer questions just minutes into the hearing, saying Paul had made clear his goal was to seek his prosecution."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, 'behind bars,'" Fauci said in his opening statement. He accused Paul of having an "obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution" and said the Senator's release of his perso...