Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was photographed outside his D.C. home Thursday evening hauling recycling bins to the curb with the sourest expression a man can wear without actually crying. His wife, bioethicist Christine Grady, was behind the wheel of their car. As they pulled away, she flipped the bird at the photographer.
Hours earlier, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee had voted 8-5 along party lines to hold her husband in contempt of Congress.
The contempt vote came after a July 29 hearing where Fauci, who once stood behind a presidential podium and told 330 million Americans how to live their lives, suddenly couldn't find the words. He invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination over 100 times — refusing to answer questions about the federal government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The man who never met a camera he didn't like had nothing to say when the questions came from people who could actually hold him accountable.
"Under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment," Fauci stated at the hearing, referencing what he called his "decades-long record of cooperating with Congress." A decades-long record of cooperating — right up until someone asked the hard questions.
Committee Chairman Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, framed the vote with precision. "We are voting on whether a witness who has received the benefit of a federal pardon can be ordered by this committee to answer questions," Paul said. And that's the detail that makes this whole thing so extraordinary. Fauci received a presidential pardon covering the years 2014 through January 2025. The pardon was supposed to be his shield. Instead, it became the prosecution's best exhibit.
A pardon, by its nature, eliminates criminal liability. Which means the Fifth Amendment — the right not to incriminate yourself — no longer applies. You can't incriminate yourself for crimes you've already been pardoned for. Paul's committee argued that Fauci had no legal basis to refuse testimony, and voted accordingly. The contempt referral now goes directly to the Department of Justice.
Fauci's attorney, David Schertler, called the vote "a crude political stunt intended to punish Dr. Fauci." Which is a fascinating way to describe a congressional committee exercising its constitutional oversight authority over a man who ran the nation's pandemic response. Gary Peters, the committee's top Democrat from Michigan, warned the resolution would "weaken this committee's ability to compel testimony" — an argument that only makes sense if you believe letting witnesses plead the Fifth after receiving a pardon somehow strengthens congressional oversight.
The pardon was supposed to make this all go away. That was the whole point. A lame-duck president signs a piece of paper, and the man who pushed school closures that kept 50 million kids out of classrooms, who funded gain-of-function research through intermediaries, who told Americans masks didn't work and then told them masks did work, gets to ride off into a comfortable retirement without ever having to explain any of it under oath.
But pardons protect you from prosecution. They don't protect you from questions. And when you take the Fifth 100 times after you've already been pardoned, you're not invoking a constitutional right. You're hiding behind one that no longer exists.
The contempt referral is now in the hands of the DOJ and the attorney general's office. Sen. Paul has indicated he will bypass a full Senate vote and send it directly. Whether it leads to prosecution is an open question.
Christine Grady's middle finger was meant for the photographer. But the image works just as well as a summary of how the Faucis feel about accountability in general.
