Trump's Trials - Anthony Fauci invokes Fifth Amendment in Rand Paul Senate hearing

Episode Date: July 29, 2026

Anthony Fauci declined to answer any questions before a Senate committee focused on the coronavirus pandemic Wednesday morning.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Trump's terms. I'm Scott Detrow. Every episode, we bring you one story from NPR's recent coverage of the 47th president. With a focus on ways his administration is pushing the boundaries of presidential power. Here's the latest from NPR. From NPR news, I'm Lela Falded. Dr. Anthony Fauci declined to answer senators' questions at a hearing this morning on how the COVID pandemic emerged and the government's response. Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who, chairs the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs released more than

a thousand pages of Fauci's private notes over the weekend. The senator alleges that the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases covered up the origins of the coronavirus. But at the hearing, Fauci says he's repeatedly answered these questions, adding, 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, quote, behind bars. Here to discuss is NPR's Global Health correspondent Jonathan Lambert. Hi, John. Hey, Leila.

So let's back up. Why is Fauci testifying today? Basically, because Senator Paul wants him to. The senator and Dr. Fauci have a long history of sparring over the pandemic, and last month, Paul subpoenaed Fauci to appear as part of ongoing investigations into COVID-19 origins. In Paul's opening statement at the hearing, he accused Fauci of covering up the origins of the pandemic, which Paul believed started when the virus leaked from a lab in China. Fauci pointed to that as evidence of Paul's vendetta against him, and so on the advice of his attorneys, he pleaded the fifth. Any sense of why he did that?

Well, in a letter NPR reviewed before the hearing, Fauci's legal team said of Senator Paul, quote, you are single-mindedly fixated on seeing Dr. Fauci prosecuted for imaginary crimes, and you are so invested in that outcome that you have created a personal brand around it, end quote. Now, President Biden pardoned Fauci preemptively at the end of his presidency. In the hearing, Fauci accused Paul of basically trying to get him to trip up or misstep in a way that might lead to perjury charges, which the pardon wouldn't cover. Fauci says that he's addressed all these questions about COVID origins before in many congressional testimony, met testimonies, and so decided to plead the fifth.

So what happened next? Well, Paul continued with his questions. A lot of them were focused on the origins debate. Senator Paul believes SARS could be two weeks from a lab in China. Fauci, along with most virologists, favor the view that the virus jumped from animals to humans at a wet market there. Paul claims that the diary that he published shows Fauci was saying one thing in public and another in private. Does he give an example of this? One entry he highlights is from January 26, 2020, so very early days.

Fauci writes about some emerging evidence and concludes that, quote, now we know the market was not the source, it was an amplifier. But as the pandemic progressed, Fauci concluded that the evidence suggested the market was the source. Senator DePaul seized on that discrepancy in a post on X, suggesting Fauci wasn't being honest. I asked Gigi Granval, a biosecurity expert at Johns Hopkins University about this, and she says, the senator is cherry-picking statements from the early days of the pandemic when people are really just figuring things out still. This is part of the scientific process and it's quite normal and they make it sound like it was a plot. It's just very conspiratorial. And since those early days, more events has accumulated and most virologists think the virus originated naturally.

And what happens now? Well, with no new testimony, it's unclear what Senator Paul can do, but given he's been pursuing this for years, it's likely to continue. That's NPR, Global Health Correspondent, Jonathan Lambert. Thank you, John. Thanks. A note before we go, if you value this show and want to help keep it going, a free and totally easy way to support us is to rate and review Trump's terms on the platform where you listen. In a world of algorithms, that goes a long way toward helping us reach new listeners.

If you have left a review in the past, thank you so much. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR.