Republican senators are split over how far to push the fight over Anthony Fauci, with Rand Paul pressing for a direct criminal referral to the Justice Department while others want the matter to move through the Senate first. The dispute has turned into a test of strategy, legal footing, and how much room Congress has to force a prosecution after Fauci’s combative testimony and the Biden pardon in the background.
Paul says the votes are there to keep moving on contempt, but his bigger play is to take the referral straight to the Justice Department instead of waiting for a full Senate vote. That approach has caught attention because it tries to cut through the usual bottlenecks and put the issue directly in front of federal prosecutors.
Josh Hawley is backing the push from another angle, saying his office is preparing a memo to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche urging the department to pursue criminal contempt against Fauci. Hawley argues Fauci cannot have it both ways, especially after invoking the Fifth Amendment while also sitting under a pardon that muddies the waters around self-incrimination claims.
“My team is working right now on a memo to Blanche explaining why we think that he can be prosecuted for contempt of Congress,” Hawley told Fox News Digital. “He’s not entitled to immunity, taken the Fifth, when he already has a pardon. It’s one or the other. ”
There is still the ordinary Senate route, and that is where the friction starts to show. After the committee vote, the full chamber would typically have to take it up, and James Lankford made clear that this is where the process gets sticky.
“It’s got to actually go through the full Senate,” said Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. “That’s the challenge.”
Paul’s shortcut would rely on Vice President J.D. Vance, as president of the Senate, certifying the resolution and sending it to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. If that path holds, it could avoid the need for 60 Senate votes and make a contempt case easier to hand off to the Justice Department.
That said, the maneuver comes with political risk. Lankford warned that if Republicans change the normal structure, Democrats could use the same playbook later when the tables turn.
“The vice president would have to make a decision if he wants to try to change the structure of what has been done in the Senate, because then that would make them vulnerable three years from now to a future, maybe, Democrat Senate,” Lankford said.
Ashley Moody is squarely in Paul’s camp and sees the DOJ route as the cleaner way to settle the issue. She said the dispute should end in court anyway, where the legal questions around Fauci’s testimony and Fifth Amendment claims can be sorted out once and for all.
“I think Rand Paul feels very strongly that you can’t have him coming in and pleading the Fifth in this situation,” Moody said. “I think he also believes ultimately this will wind up in a court and that will be clarified by a court, and I think that’s probably necessary as we move forward.”
Fauci’s pardon from former President Joe Biden adds another layer to the clash, especially because it covers a wide stretch of time and raises new questions about what he can and cannot refuse to answer. Republicans arguing for contempt say the pardon should not serve as a shield against congressional accountability, while skeptics believe the legal basis is still too shaky to ignore.
Mike Rounds is among the Republicans urging caution, saying the core issue is whether there is enough there to justify contempt in the first place. He pointed to Fauci’s Fifth Amendment invocation as part of what makes the case harder to pin down.
“The first thing you have to do is identify what it is that you would be holding him in contempt for,” Rounds said. “I think he took the Fifth. And doing so, I think it makes it more difficult for anybody to actually suggest that.”
Rounds also tried to put the controversy in the context of the fear and confusion that defined the COVID era. He said lawmakers should remember how intense that period was and how quickly the situation changed for everyone involved.
“Whether the advice was really good advice or if it was the best advice they had, it was a different time period,” Rounds said. “So I just hope we all remember that.”
