A former advisor to both presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden during the COVID pandemic has invoked the Fifth Amendment – refusing to answer questions before a U.S. congressional hearing.
Dr. Anthony Fauci was the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases until his retirement in 2022.
He opened his statement before the congressional hearing accusing Republican Senator Rand Paul of trying to embarrass and intimidate him.
“Given Senator Paul’s obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently, his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, 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 says he was invoking his right under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution on the advice of his attorneys.
