Why Anthony Fauci invoked Fifth Amendment at Covid-19 Senate hearing

4 min readUpdated: Jul 29, 2026 07:43 PM IST Anthony Fauci, the former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), attends a US Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, July 29, 2026. (REUTERS) Former US infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci on Wednesday invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and declined to answer questions before a Republican-led Senate committee investigating his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. The move came during a hearing chaired by Senator Rand Paul, one of Fauci’s most outspoken critics, and is likely to intensify the long-running political battle over the origins of the coronavirus and federal funding of virus research. Why did Fauci invoke the Fi