WASHINGTON (TNND) \u2014 Dr. Anthony Fauci repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment when pressed by senators during a hearing over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its origins, accusing the chairman of having an \u201cunhinged obsession\u201d with him.<\/p>\n
In his opening statement before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Fauci said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has an “obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution.”<\/p>\n
Fauci said he had testified more than 200 times over his nearly four decades running the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and that he could not answer questions on the advice of his lawyers.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven Sen. Paul\u2019s obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, 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 that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, \u2018behind bars,\u2019\u201d Fauci said.<\/p>\n
Paul subpoenaed the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director to testify<\/a> after releasing more than 1,000 pages from Fauci’s private pandemic diary<\/a>, which the Kentucky Republican claims contradict Fauci’s public statements about COVID-19’s origins. Fauci has repeatedly denied those allegations.<\/p>\n Paul told Fauci there would be consequences for his refusal to answer lawmakers\u2019 questions.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress,\u201d Paul said. \u201cThere will be repercussions to your refusal to testify today.\u201d<\/p>\n Ahead of the hearing, Paul said the diary shows “a big level of dishonesty” and claimed Fauci privately expressed concerns that COVID-19 may have come from a laboratory in China while publicly downplaying that possibility.<\/p>\n “What Fauci wrote privately and what he told the country are two different stories,” Paul wrote on X.<\/a><\/p>\n Fauci has repeatedly denied misleading Congress or the public, calling Paul’s accusations “preposterous.” His attorneys have also described the allegations as “absolutely baseless.”<\/p>\n What is the hearing about?<\/p>\n The hearing is expected to focus on two questions that have fueled debate for years:<\/p>\n Where did COVID-19 come from? Some believe the virus spread naturally from animals to people, while others believe it accidentally leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. Fauci has said both possibilities were considered early on, but that the scientific evidence more strongly supports a natural origin.Did U.S. tax dollars help fund risky virus research in China? Republicans have accused Fauci of misleading lawmakers about research funded through a U.S. nonprofit that worked with a laboratory in Wuhan. Fauci has repeatedly denied that the research involved the kind of experiments that could have created the virus that caused the pandemic.<\/p>\n Many of the diary entries Paul highlighted describe the uncertainty scientists faced during the early days of the pandemic as they worked to understand the new virus. <\/p>\n On January 26 2020, in the early days of the pandemic, Fauci wrote: “It now appears that the first infection was in early December and was not connected to the market.<\/p>\n He also wrote, “Now we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier.”<\/p>\n