A contentious Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on COVID-19 origins and the government’s pandemic response erupted Wednesday when Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio unleashed a profane tirade at Dr. Anthony Fauci. Moreno, a first-term Republican, told the 85-year-old former White House chief medical adviser, “Here I am, sitting in front of you six years later, saying who the f*ck do you think you were for doing that,” referring to lockdowns, masking rules and school closures he blames on Fauci’s guidance.
The exchange came during a GOP-led session chaired by Sen. Rand Paul, who has pursued Fauci for years and said he had hoped to hear “perhaps an apology” before scheduling a contempt vote after Fauci refused to answer questions. Instead, Fauci repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, declining to respond to questions about his role in shaping COVID-19 mitigation policies and about whether he destroyed or directed others to destroy federal records.
Moreno pressed Fauci on that silence, handing him a pocket Constitution, demanding he explain what the Fifth Amendment says, and accusing him of hiding behind a right he “didn’t know who wrote,” before noting it was authored by James Madison. At one point, Moreno asked audience members who said they were labeled racist for calling it the “China virus,” fired for refusing vaccination, or opposed school closures to stand, then urged Fauci to turn around and look at them—an appeal he refused as he kept his gaze fixed on his lawyers.
Moreno repeatedly asked whether Fauci would apologize to service members discharged for declining the vaccine, to parents who masked toddlers, and to an Ohio mother arrested at a high school football game over local mask rules, only to be met each time with the same Fifth Amendment invocation. In his opening statement before the fireworks, Fauci accused Paul of an “unhinged obsession” with prosecuting him and noted that former President Joe Biden had issued him a pre‑emptive pardon for actions related to the federal COVID-19 response.
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