If Senators Truly Want the Truth from Fauci,

Offer Full Immunity So He Cannot Plead the Fifth

by Michael J Badagliacco, "MJB"



Anthony Fauci refused to answer your elected senators more than 100 times. Reports put the number at 111 during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on July 29, 2026. He was not being asked about some minor paperwork mistake. Senators asked about COVID’s origins, taxpayer-funded research tied to Wuhan, the effort to discredit the lab-leak theory, and statements Fauci had already made before Congress. He responded by pleading the Fifth again and again.

The Human Cost We Still Carry

You and I remember what those years were like. We watched children locked out of classrooms and families kept from their dying relatives. Churches were forced to lock their doors. Family businesses collapsed. Workers were told to submit to mandated COVID shots or lose the paycheck that kept food on the table.

Families will never get over the loss. And we are still paying for what happened. Fauci is not. He left government healthy, wealthy, and protected by a sweeping pardon bearing Joe Biden’s signature.

Biden’s Pardon and the Questions It Raises

On January 19, 2025, in the final hours of his presidency, Biden granted Fauci a full and unconditional pardon for any offenses against the United States that he may have committed or taken part in from January 1, 2014, through the date of the pardon, arising from or related to his service as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force or COVID-19 Response Team, or as Chief Medical Advisor to the President.

After everything the world went through, Fauci now sits before Congress, refuses to answer, and returns to his comfortable retirement. Ask yourself: why would an innocent man need a pre-emptive pardon stretching back to 2014? That is impossible to swallow.

Alan Dershowitz: The Case for Full Immunity

Biden’s pardon covers federal offenses connected to Fauci’s government service in that period. Yet Fauci still invoked the Fifth Amendment across the board. Chairman Rand Paul has called for an August 5 vote to hold Fauci in contempt. Republicans control the committee by one vote. If one of them backs down, the resolution could fail.

Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz addressed this directly in his Substack article published July 30, 2026. He argued that Fauci not only had the right to plead the Fifth, he was probably right to do so. “The Fifth Amendment protects the innocent and the guilty alike. No one should infer guilt from anyone invoking that constitutional privilege.” Dershowitz wrote that had he been Fauci’s lawyer, he “probably would have advised him to do exactly what he did,” despite the public inference of guilt that often follows.

The pardon is retrospective, not prospective. It does not cover conduct after its issuance. The committee was probing potential post-pardon issues such as alleged lying, hiding documents, or destroying records. Once a witness answers questions on a subject, courts can treat that as a waiver for related questions. A careful lawyer therefore advises invoking the privilege across the board, even for trivial matters such as the day of the week or the color of the carpet, so the “spigot” cannot be turned on and then off. That is what Fauci’s counsel did, and Dershowitz said he would have done the same.

Here is the outstanding point Dershowitz makes, and it deserves serious attention even from those of us who believe Fauci bears heavy responsibility for the damage inflicted on American families. If the committee and the Senate were seriously interested in learning the facts rather than simply going after Fauci, they could recommend that Congress bestow total immunity on him up to the present. That immunity would not protect him from a perjury prosecution if he testified falsely, but it would immunize him from other crimes and strip away his ability to invoke the Fifth. Congress could then question him about everything he knows. As Dershowitz put it, “the best thing for our nation and for the world would be to give Dr. Fauci total immunity and question him about everything he knows without giving him the right to refuse to answer on the ground that his answers might tend to incriminate him.”

Accountability Still Matters

I am all for accountability. Fauci’s role in the COVID response, the school closures, the church shutdowns, the business destruction, the isolation of the dying, the pressure for mandates, and the suppression of dissent about origins and research funding, demands consequences commensurate with the harm. Prison is not too strong a word for many of us who lived through it, and some go further. Yet Dershowitz is correct on the constitutional and practical point: if the goal is the truth about Wuhan funding, gain-of-function research, the lab-leak theory, prior testimony under oath, and what federal officials knew when they made decisions that upended ordinary life, then full immunity is the cleanest path to compel answers. Blanket silence leaves the public with managed reports that protect the officials who failed while millions suffered.

What Fauci Said Then Versus Now

Fauci was not standing quietly in the background during COVID. He relished the spotlight, led the federal response, appeared on television constantly, and demanded that Americans treat his word as unquestionable. His recommendations helped force closing schools and churches, medical mandates, and restrictions that tore through ordinary life. Parents watched their children fall behind, isolated from friends. For some it cost mental health; for others, lives. Sons and daughters said goodbye to dying parents through windows and computer screens. The elderly died alone. Business owners who had spent decades building something for their families watched it disappear while larger institutions flourished.

Through all of it, Fauci had plenty to say. Now Congress is asking what he knew, what he approved, and whether Americans were misled. Suddenly he has nothing to say. He proclaimed, with all the authority of the federal government, that he was protecting you. Now he protects only himself.

Congress must not allow Fauci to end the investigation by invoking the Fifth Amendment as a complete shield. If a particular answer exposes him to a state charge or conduct outside Biden’s pardon, his lawyers can make that case and let a court examine it. Taxpayer money funneled into dangerous research must be investigated. Statements made under oath must be examined. Any concealment of records or information must be exposed. The world needs real answers, not another carefully managed government report that protects the officials who failed.

CitizenGO and others have fought expansions of international health authority, including the WHO Pandemic Treaty, precisely because the officials and institutions that failed during COVID should not be handed more power over the next emergency. They must answer for what happened the last time.

The August 5 Vote and the Choice Before Us

This vote is close enough for public pressure to make a real difference. The committee has eight Republicans and seven Democrats. If all eight Republicans keep the promises they have made about COVID accountability, the contempt resolution passes. If even one walks away, it could collapse.

Every Republican on that committee must understand exactly what a vote against contempt means. It means Fauci gets to walk away wealthy, pardoned, and silent while American families are left to carry the damage. If they do not have the courage, we are forced to leave without answers, without accountability, and without a shred of trust left in our government.

A strong public demand gives Rand Paul something he needs right now. It shows wavering senators and Senate leadership that Americans have not forgotten and will not accept another investigation that ends the moment an official refuses to cooperate.

If the committee advances contempt, the legal fight moves forward. Fauci’s claim can be tested, and Congress can pursue further action to compel his testimony. He could finally be required to answer under oath about Wuhan funding, COVID’s origins, his past testimony, and what federal officials knew when they made decisions that changed our lives.

A Better Path to the Truth

There is a better path still. Grant the full immunity Dershowitz describes. Force the testimony. Protect against perjury. Get the facts on the record. Then let the consequences follow from the truth rather than from silence.

If the committee folds, Fauci may never have to answer. Biden’s pardon protects him from covered federal prosecution, while his invocation of the Fifth protects him from explaining what happened. That would teach every future official the same lesson: exercise enormous power, secure a pardon, refuse to answer, and walk away while ordinary people live with the consequences. It would also allow the institutions behind expanded international health powers to demand even more authority without being held accountable for their record during COVID.

We cannot change what our families endured. We can ensure the officials responsible do not bury the truth and then demand even more power. Demand the committee vote Fauci in contempt and send the resolution to the full Senate. Better yet, demand the immunity that would actually produce answers.

The American people are still waiting.