Sen. Hawley calls for Senate contempt vote after Fauci invokes Fifth Amendment more than 100 times

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, said the Senate should hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt after Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 110 times during a Senate hearing Wednesday.

“We can certainly hold him in contempt, which we absolutely should,” Hawley told Heartlander News in an exclusive interview Thursday. “He was called pursuant to a valid subpoena. He denied and obstructed based on an improper invocation of the Fifth Amendment, so I believe that we can hold him in contempt. I believe we should hold him in contempt, and I look forward to casting that vote.”

Hawley, a former Missouri attorney general, questioned Fauci during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on the origins of COVID-19, accusing him of using federal employees to apply for cash prizes totaling more than $1 million. He referenced internal emails that said to “beef up” Fauci’s COVID-19 work to help him receive the Dan David Award – a $900,000 cash prize – and asked Fauci to confirm: “Isn’t that right, Doc?” Fauci repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment.

“On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution,” Fauci said 111 times before the committee.

Hawley said the repeated invocation is notable because Fauci is already protected by former President Joe Biden’s pardon, which was issued in Biden’s final hours in office. Hawley continued at the hearing, saying Fauci “turned [his] staff into a full-time application machine.”

“In fact, you used eight separate federal employees on federal time using federal resources to solicit cash awards,” Hawley said Wednesday, adding that the practice violates federal law.

“You cannot use federal resources, federal dollars, federal employees, federal offices, federal email, federal time to solicit cash awards,” he said. “And you did all of it. And the worst part is, thousands of people were dying while you were doing it.”

Hawley introduced legislation Thursday that would bar federal bureaucrats from accepting cash prizes in addition to prohibiting the use of federal employees to solicit such prizes.

“While millions of people were sick, over a million Americans died, he was getting rich, and he was using his government position and government resources to do it,” Hawley told Heartlander News. “I’ve introduced legislation today that would make that illegal. It was already unethical to use his employees to go get this cash in the way that he did. This guy should be exposed and he should be prosecuted.”

Fauci’s net worth is now more than $12 million because of his self-promotion and illegal solicitation, Hawley argued.

“A million people dead, you’re getting rich. A million people dead, you’re using federal employees to get cash awards for you,” he said. “A million people dead, and you’re here taking the fifth because you don’t want to admit that what really happened in all that time was a multi-month, multi-year course of self-dealing.”

He also confronted Fauci over what he described as Fauci’s pride, calling him a “narcissist,” “megalomaniac” and a “liar.”

“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, and I hope you’ll go home and write that in your diary,” he said, referencing journal entries that Hawley said revealed Fauci’s extensive knowledge of COVID-19’s origins in 2019.