Sen. Rand Paul plans to send a contempt of Congress referral against Dr. Anthony Fauci directly to the Department of Justice after a committee vote, bypassing the traditional full Senate process.
Paul, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday that he would forward the referral to the DOJ once his committee approves a contempt resolution in a vote scheduled for Thursday morning. The move follows Fauci's refusal to answer questions during a Senate hearing last week, where the former infectious disease chief invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times.
Fauci's only contribution during that hearing was an opening statement in which he accused Paul of having an "obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution." He declined to answer any substantive questions about his handling of the federal government's COVID-19 response, the subject of the hearing, and sat silent behind the Fifth Amendment for the rest of the proceeding.
The senator's legal theory is straightforward: Fauci already holds a blanket pardon from former President Joe Biden, issued in the final hours of Biden's presidency, covering federal offenses over a roughly ten-year period. Paul contends that because the pardon shields Fauci from federal prosecution, there is no valid basis for Fauci to invoke the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination, at least not on federal grounds.
Paul scheduled the contempt vote shortly after the hearing. He framed the referral as a necessary step to hold Fauci accountable for stonewalling a congressional investigation.
"We have a law in Congress that if you will not testify and help an investigation, it's called contempt of Congress. It's a felony."
That was Paul speaking to Just The News, where he laid out the core of his argument: that Fauci's refusal to cooperate constitutes a separate crime not covered by Biden's pardon. The pardon, Paul argues, covered past federal offenses, it did not grant Fauci a license to defy Congress going forward.
Paul told the Washington Examiner he would include a legal brief with the referral, laying out the case for why the DOJ should investigate and potentially prosecute. He also said he planned to discuss the matter with Senate leadership about a possible full chamber vote on the contempt resolution, though he argued the committee-to-DOJ route does not require that additional step.
"It's a referral. It's a recommendation. So, we'll send it directly from the committee, but then we'll also talk to leadership and at some point in time see if they want to vote on it."
Federal law does lay out a process for the president of the Senate to certify a contempt resolution before it reaches the DOJ. Paul's position is that this certification step is not a prerequisite, that the committee can refer the matter on its own authority.
Sen. James Lankford, the Oklahoma Republican who also sits on the Homeland Security Committee, told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday that he would support the contempt resolution. But Lankford drew a distinction between the contempt question and Fauci's Fifth Amendment rights, suggesting the two issues are not as cleanly linked as Paul's framing implies.
"It's two different issues here. I believe he has a Fifth Amendment right based on his protection for state crimes that are sitting out there, obviously, or any future crimes, that's very different."
Lankford's point: even with a federal pardon in hand, Fauci may still face state-level legal exposure. Attorneys general from several Republican-led states have vowed to investigate Fauci following his Senate hearing. If state charges are a real possibility, Fauci's Fifth Amendment claim may have legitimate grounding, at least as it relates to those proceedings. Lankford appeared to view the contempt vote as appropriate regardless, treating Fauci's refusal to cooperate as a separate matter from whether his constitutional claim had merit.
That distinction matters. Other Republican lawmakers have warned that Biden's pardon does not shield Fauci from consequences if he lies under oath or refuses to participate in congressional oversight. The contempt referral represents the sharpest procedural tool available to enforce that principle.
The pardon itself has become a contested document. Biden granted it on January 19, 2025, but it was executed via autopen, a mechanical signature device, raising questions about whether Biden personally reviewed or authorized it. The Trump administration has declared autopen-signed pardons null and void, a position that, if upheld, could strip Fauci of his federal immunity entirely.
Paul has seized on this vulnerability. In a prior criminal referral, he first sent Fauci's case to the DOJ in July 2023, alleging Fauci lied under oath about NIH funding of gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Paul argued that if the pardon is constitutionally invalid, the DOJ has a duty to prosecute Fauci like any other citizen. Breitbart reported that Paul cited a February 2020 email from Fauci acknowledging that gain-of-function research was occurring in Wuhan prior to the pandemic, which Paul says directly contradicts Fauci's sworn congressional testimony.
Paul previously subpoenaed Fauci to compel his testimony on COVID-19 origins, a step that preceded the hearing where Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times.
Fauci is not the only figure from the pandemic-era public health apparatus facing legal scrutiny. His former senior adviser, David Morens, was indicted on charges including conspiracy and falsification of records related to concealing COVID-19 origins. The New York Post reported that the DOJ is weighing additional criminal cases against Fauci himself, even as the five-year statute of limitations for his May 2021 Senate testimony about gain-of-function research funding expired without charges being filed.
Legal experts and administration officials cited by the Post indicated that other potential charges remain viable, including conspiracy, allegations of lying about personal email use, and state-level offenses. A Trump administration official stated that "accountability for pandemic-era misconduct is non-negotiable" and that the administration is "aggressively exploring every legal avenue" to hold individuals accountable for COVID-era wrongdoing.
Paul, for his part, has shown no sign of relenting. "Whether the DOJ decides to charge Fauci or not, I'm not letting up," he said. He has referred Fauci to the DOJ multiple times under the Biden administration, referrals that went nowhere while Biden occupied the White House. The current referral, backed by a committee vote and directed at a DOJ now operating under different leadership, carries a different political weight.
Other Senate Republicans have called for Fauci to face jail time over his repeated Fifth Amendment invocations, reflecting a broader appetite within the conference for consequences.
Paul told Newsmax that the committee vote, which he indicated is set for August 5, would clear the way for a direct referral to the DOJ. He reiterated his position that a pardoned individual cannot validly invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid congressional testimony.
"I don't think that you can really plead the Fifth Amendment when you've been given immunity."
The referral is exactly what Paul described it as: a recommendation. The DOJ is under no obligation to prosecute. But the political and legal dynamics have shifted since Paul's earlier referrals went unanswered. The pardon's legitimacy is in dispute. Fauci's former colleague faces an indictment. Republican state attorneys general are circling. And Fauci himself chose silence over cooperation when given the chance to answer questions under oath.
Paul also released Fauci's diary entries ahead of last week's hearing, entries that had been stored on a government server. The contents of those entries were not detailed in public reporting, but their release signaled Paul's willingness to use every available tool to build the public record around Fauci's conduct.
The question now is whether the DOJ will treat this referral differently than the ones that came before. Under the Biden administration, those referrals disappeared into a bureaucratic void. Under the current administration, the stated posture is aggressive pursuit of pandemic-era accountability. The contempt resolution, if approved Thursday, will test whether that posture translates into action.
A man who helped lead the federal pandemic response sat before the United States Senate, declined to answer a single question, and walked out. If contempt of Congress means anything at all, this is the case that proves it.
