WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri took former White House coronavirus czar Dr. Anthony Fauci to task Wednesday during congressional testimony about the origins of the COVID-19 virus as Republicans continue to seek prosecution for the controversial, pardoned bureaucrat. 

Fauci had been called before the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee, where he invoked the Fifth Amendment (which protects the right not to give self-incriminating testimony) more than 100 times in response to a battery of questions about his role in the federal COVID response, the differences between his public pronouncements and actual private knowledge, and the origins of the virus.

Among the questioners was Hawley, who opened by demonstrating the absurdity of Fauci’s strategy with a series of mundane questions such as “what day of the week is it today,” “what color are you wearing,” and “what carpet is the color in front of you,” all of which Fauci answered by repeating, “on the advice of counsel I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.”

Senator Josh Hawley @HawleyMO To Anthony Fauci: A Million People Dead & You’re Getting Richhttps://t.co/9GTbPPNhtZ

Excerpted from:

Anthony Fauci Invokes 5th Amendment 111 Times, Refusing To Answer Questions During Senate Hearinghttps://t.co/yCBaCe4vWf

Full Committee Hearing… pic.twitter.com/bjaSAILAQM

— David Sunfellow (@sunfellow) July 29, 2026

“Let’s just get one thing straight,” Hawley said. “You don’t have any rights under the Fifth Amendment because you’ve been pardoned, as you very well know. As the Supreme Court has been clear for a century and more, Brown vs. Walker, 1896, when he has been pardoned, he may not stand upon his privilege.”

“This isn’t about the law. This is about contempt,” he continued, “contempt for this body and contempt for the American people.” Hawley added:

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, didn’t you? You got rich while people were dying. Hundreds of thousands of Americans, over a million in the end, and you were getting rich and not only were you doing that, you were using federal employees with taxpayer money to apply for and solicit cash prizes for you personally. Cash prizes totaling over a million dollars.

Hawley went on to press Fauci, to no avail, on his former chief of staff Greg Folkers and personal assistant Patricia Conrad, who were allegedly soliciting information on these awards, according to recently released emails, in violation of federal law.

“You turned your staff into a full-time application machine. You actually wrote to people and said, ‘Do you think maybe I qualify?’ And you got cash for all of this,” he said. “And it wasn’t just one or two employees, was it? In fact, you used eight separate federal employees on federal time using federal resources to solicit cash for that.”

Throughout the grilling, Fauci merely kept pleading the Fifth, prompting Hawley to eventually fire back, “silence is admission.”

“And here’s the real thing,” he continued. “At the end of the day, it wasn’t just about the money, really, was it? It was really about a power trip.”

I mean, through all of this, you want to be the most famous scientist in the world. You were so focused on getting every award and every drop of cash that you could, all because you wanted to be on TV, you wanted to be the sun god of science. You wanted to be the guy who was in charge of it all. You wanted to lambast Trump. You wanted to make sure that nobody else stole your spotlight. You wanted to be the guy. You had time to sit for ‘In Style’ Magazine.

“But you can’t answer questions for the American people,” he continued, adding:

Here’s my conclusion from all of this. This was really all about you the whole time. Somewhere along the way, you lost your way. You may have been a good public servant at one time. I don’t know. But I can tell you from reading your emails now, from looking at what you did, how you used your employees, somewhere along the line, it became all about you. You became a narcissist and a megalomaniac and a liar, and you’ve lied to the American people, and you’ve lied to this body. And you’ve disgraced your profession by doing it. You called yourself the most famous scientist in the world. You’ve done more to harm science than anybody in my lifetime. I hope you’ll go home and write that in your diary.

Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases (NIAID), was once a relatively obscure health official but became a household name during the 2020 COVID outbreak, lionized in the media but soon developing a record of deep credibility issues.

In February 2020, Fauci said there was “absolutely no reason whatsoever to wear a mask” in the United States; by July, he was arguing that Americans wear not only masks but goggles and face shields (overwhelming evidence has since established that COVID masking was ineffective).

Critics also faulted Fauci for suggesting that handshaking should be abolished yet sexual activity with strangers remains alright if “you’re willing to take a risk,” and championing COVID shot mandates despite being unwilling or unable to give a “firm answer” on why the shots are necessary for those with immunity from prior infection. In January 2024, he admitted under oath that the pervasive six-foot “social distancing” rule was “likely not based on any data” and “just sort of appeared.”

But arguably the biggest mark on Fauci’s record was his approval of federal funding to explore gain-of-function (GOF) research, which entails intentionally strengthening viruses to study their effects, at several sites, including China’s controversial Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), where evidence indicates COVID-19 may have originally leaked from. Leaked emails have revealed that Fauci and other top researchers were aware of the lab-leak possibility as early as February 2020 but attempted to discredit it as they feared that publicly acknowledging the theory would impair “science and international harmony.”

Yet former President Joe Biden pardoned Fauci for anything he may have done between January 2014 and the end of Biden’s presidency, leaving Republicans divided on what, if anything, can and should still be done to hold him accountable. Fauci refused to answer questions primarily because, had he been found to be lying under oath about any of the topics, it would constitute a new chargeable offense not covered by the pardon.

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