GOP senators have voted to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress following a tense hearing last week.

Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee cast their votes Thursday, after former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases chief repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right during the hearing on July 29. The 8-7 vote fell along party lines.

Fauci, who has long been a target of MAGA politicians and pundits for his work during the COVID-19 pandemic, had been pardoned by former President Biden at the end of his tenure as commander-in-chief. Chairman Rand Paul addressed that pardon at the opening of the meeting to vote on holding Fauci in contempt.

“We are voting on whether a witness who has received the benefit of a sweeping federal pardon can be ordered by this committee to answer questions and then defy that order without consequence,” Paul said.

What happens next?

Usually, contempt of Congress resolutions are handed over to the Senate following a committee’s decision.

However, Paul told reporters on Wednesday that he wants the decision to be referred straight to the Department of Justice. He even said that there “might not be” a point to the Senate voting on the matter when it returns from August recess.

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, would need to obtain a grand jury indictment in order to move ahead with prosecuting Fauci.

Pirro, though, has come under fire from Trump after she moved to drop charges against former Olympian David Hearn after he was accused of damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

“She folded like an umbrella,” he said.

Trump added, “I think she choked, because the judge was really vicious.”

Why was Fauci at the hearing?

Fauci had been subpoenaed to testify under oath by Paul to answer questions about his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

During the pandemic, Fauci served as a crucial advisor at the highest levels of government, a key member of the White House task force established to combat the virus.

In Fauci’s opening statement at the hearing, he claimed that Paul has an “obsession with calling for my 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 added.

Paul told Semafor that he chose to subpoena Fauci after he agreed to appear before a panel in June but then backed out.

Paul added that he wanted to ask questions about Fauci’s “pardon, gain of function research being funded when he said it wasn’t, and the destruction of records.”

Why did Fauci invoke his Fifth Amendment Rights?

During his opening statement, Fauci claimed that the purpose of his appearance at the hearing was to get him to “say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, quote, behind bars, unquote.”

Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination over 100 times during a recent hearing. He had previously indicated he would do so on the advice of his lawyers, aiming to avoid new legal risks.

Biden’s pardoning of Fauci covers acts from 2014 until the date that the pardon was issued in 2025.

Republicans say that false statements made under oath during the 2026 hearing would leave the physician exposed to perjury charges.

Why was Fauci held in contempt?

The decision to hold Fauci in contempt came after an intense hearing that lasted around three hours. He was held in contempt for refusing to answer questions throughout this hearing.

Fauci’s lawyer, David Schertler, described the decision as a “crude political stunt intended to punish Dr. Fauci for exercising his constitutional rights,” in a statement obtained by The Wall Street Journal.

Fauci’s lawyer described the resolution to reporters as a continuation of Paul’s “vendetta” against his client and described the Republican’s actions as “shameful and wrong.”

On social media, Paul argued that Fauci had been “immune to prosecution” and had refused to comply with a subpoena. He described that as the “very definition of contempt.”

During the hearing, Paul and other Republicans accused Fauci of being dishonest about the origins of Covid-19. Fauci has denied this.

In addition, more than a thousand pages of Fauci’s diary, written during the pandemic, were released ahead of the hearing.

On X, Paul claimed that what Fauci said in public was the “complete opposite of what he wrote in his diary.”