Iowa Senator Joni Ernst and other Republicans on a Senate panel have voted to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of congress for refusing to answer questions about pandemic-related decisions he made.
Ernst questioned Fauci last week during his appearance at a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing. “Americans deserve answers about reports that you may have worked with others to pressure the president into adopting the ‘slow the spread’ strategy,” Ernst said, “and why you later sought an unconditional pardon for crimes you may have committed dating back to 2014.”
President Biden issued a pardon for Fauci, who was the chief medical advisor to President Trump when the COVID-19 pandemic reached the United States in early 2020. During last week’s hearing, Ernst questioned Fauci’s decision to finance Chinese research into coronaviruses and to allow a North Carolina lab to implant aborted body parts in mice that were shipped to a lab in China. “Americans haven’t forgotten the mandates, the adverse reactions to vaccines, the government misinformation, social media censorship, hotlines to tattle on their neighbors, the forced school closures,” Ernst said to Fauci last week.
Fauci cited his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and did not answer the committee’s questions. “Americans are asking for accountability, Dr. Fauci, and your silence is very telling,” Ernst said as she concluded her remarks a week ago.
Today, the senator who leads the committee has forwarded the panel’s contempt finding to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D-C and is asking for the Justice Department to investigate Fauci’s actions.