Peters: Fauci contempt vote will "create a damaging precedent"

Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, railed against Republicans' push to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress for pleading the Fifth and refusing to answer questions during a hearing last week on the origins of COVID-19.

"Following a one-sided investigation and a rushed process that has repeatedly excluded the minority and other members of this committee, the chairman is now asking the committee to take a vote that could harm our ability to conduct future investigations and disregards constitutional protections long recognized by the U.S. Senate," he said in his opening statement.

Dr. Fauci, who retired in 2022 after a decades-long run as director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told senators last week he was refusing to answer questions due to Chair Rand Paul's (R-KY) "obvious obsession" with calling for his prosecution and "repeated slanderous comments" about him.

"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,'" he said in a brief opening statement. "Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion."

Sen. Paul argued Dr. Fauci's pardon, issued in the final days of the Biden administration, made that argument moot, and said "a subpoena is not an invitation."

Sen. Peters argued that the committee taking this step would undermine its investigative powers and set a dangerous precedent given Congress's longstanding respect for witnesses' Fifth Amendment rights.

"What it will do is create a damaging precedent that future witnesses will use to resist legitimate congressional oversight and weaken this committee's ability to compel testimony," he said.

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