Dr. Fauci's Good Lawyers

Susan Estrich on Aug 1, 2026

111 times. That's how many times Dr. Anthony Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid falling into the perjury trap Sen. Rand Paul was setting for him. Dr. Fauci was not brought in to testify because they needed to know more about what he had said and done in the past. No, he has not only testified multiple times about all of these issues in the past, but they are covered by the broad pardon of him that President Joe Biden granted before he left office.

The purpose here was the trap. Sen. Paul was open about it. He told reporters before the hearing that any statement made by Dr. Fauci at the hearing would not be protected by the presidential pardon -- so if there were any inconsistency between what Dr. Fauci said now and then, no matter how small or insignificant, it could be the basis of a perjury charge. Paul has made no bones about his desire to see Dr. Fauci behind bars. Not that he can single-handedly succeed at doing so, but he got a gaggle of Republican senators who should have known better to follow his lead.

It is the purpose of the Fifth Amendment to prevent such persecutions. That's what this was, pure and simple, and thankfully we have a Constitution to invoke to stop it.

Not that Fauci was able to escape entirely unscathed. His lawyer -- who happens to have a stellar reputation in Washington -- got thrown out of the hearing. Some attorney general from the South threatened to prosecute him. For what? Invoking the Fifth. Paul wants to hold him in contempt for that. Again, I ask, for what? Since when is rightly invoking the Fifth because you rightly fear investigation and persecution, if not lawful prosecution, an offense that can land you behind bars? Punishing constitutionally protected activity as a crime?

Of course, there will always be people who say that only the guilty invoke the Fifth, and that's what they're saying about Dr. Fauci. When you're the target of a witch hunt, invoking the Fifth is an act of courage, calling your persecutors on their case.

Paul tried to smear Dr. Fauci by releasing excerpts from his diary in advance of the hearing. Some of his comments about the president were insulting. Big surprise. Not a crime. He was, it appears, impressed and taken by all the media attention he was receiving. A "narcissist," one of the Republican senators called him. Since when is that a crime in Washington?

For me, Dr. Fauci will always be a dedicated public servant who spent his life saving lives. There is no full accounting I've seen of the millions of lives he saved in the AIDS and COVID epidemics. Did his agency fund research at the lab in Wuhan that Paul is so sure was the source of a "lab leak"? It did, but as countless experts have tried to explain to Paul, it was not the kind of research that could have led to the COVID leak. What do you do with a man who prefers spite over science?

You ignore him, which is what the Senate, and the public, should do with Rand Paul.

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