The REAL reason Anthony Fauci refused to answer any of the Senate’s questions… and why the doctor may be headed for indictment: ALAN DERSHOWITZ

Peloni:  It is a long tradition in the US Congress to hear the sad refrain repeated, “We are going to get to the bottom of this…”, only to see over and over again that little to nothing is achieved before Congress adjourns and each Congressman goes out to fund raise off of their calls for justice while seemingly never actually achieving it.  Is that we are looking at in the Fauci hearings?  If so, what alternatives might we find to offset the conclusion that nothing will ultimately be done after seven years without a single prosecution being pursued related to the Covid scams.

Alan Dershowitz offers an interesting potential of actually changing this long denial of justice, but it comes at the cost of setting free the most recognizable character associated with Covid.  The alternative to this would require seeking something actionable in the hours following Fauci’s immunity deal, or attempting to challenge a presidential pardon… So, considering all of this, what actually should be done?

 

Alan Dershowitz | Jul 30, 2026

Anthony Fauci pleads the Fifth Amendment during Congressional hearing. Screengrab via Youtube

Dr. Anthony Fauci not only had the right to plead the Fifth Amendment before a congressional committee, 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. Had I been Dr. Fauci’s lawyer I probably would have advised him to do exactly what he did, despite the fact that many people will wrongly infer guilt from his refusal to testify.

The committee that was examining Fauci has an agenda. It is not seeking the whole truth. It is seeking partisan advantage.

Members of congress and their staff frequently use these hearings to bully witnesses. They often cut them off in the middle of their answers and refuse to allow them to comply with their oath to “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” Congressmen and their staff then have the ability to distort the testimony out of context and create soundbites for their campaigns.

Let me begin with Fauci’s constitutional right to invoke the Fifth Amendment. Yes, he was pardoned for any past crimes but the pardon does not operate prospectively. The committee was trying to prove that he had committed crimes not only before his pardon but after it. He surely had the right to invoke the Fifth Amendment as to any potentially incriminating information that would allow prosecution for post-pardoned crimes. To refuse to answer is not to acknowledge guilt; it’s to acknowledge prosecutors can indict innocent defendants using evidence obtained in congressional hearings.

Senator Rand Paul tried to avoid this constitutional barrier by specifically asking him questions that are clearly covered by the pardon President Biden gave him. This may make it appear that Dr. Fauci had nothing to fear from answering questions limited to that period. But that ignores a line of Supreme Court cases that hold that if a defendant answers some questions about a particular subject, he may not refuse to answer other questions about that subject. He may not turn the spigot on and off. Once he opens the door by answering questions about a subject, he may not close it in response to other questions.

So any good lawyer will always advise a client who seeks to invoke the Fifth Amendment to invoke it across the board and not try to pick and choose safe areas. That’s what Dr. Fauci’s lawyer did here, and that’s what I would’ve done had I been Dr. Fauci’s lawyer.

There is of course a price to pay in the court of public opinion for invoking the Fifth Amendment in response to hundreds of questions. Opportunistic politicians are eager to cite the number of times a witness has invoked the privilege, without explaining that there is no real difference between invoking it once and continuing to invoke it as for every question. This tactic was used commonly during the McCarthy era, when witnesses refused even to give their names or dates of birth. Similarly, Dr. Fauci refused to answer questions about the color of his tie for fear that he might be waiving his Fifth Amendment right as to other questions.

So whether you like Dr Fauci or not, all Americans who care about constitutional rights should be supporting his fifth amendment right to refuse to incriminate himself.

The fact that Dr. Fauci was within his constitutional rights does not mean that he is out of trouble. The congressional committee may well recommend that he be held in contempt. And congress may vote to hold him in contempt. The Trump Justice department could indict him and he would have to litigate these issues. Although there is no guarantee that he will win, the law seems clearly to be on his side. Moreover it may take a considerable amount of time for this case to work its way through congress and the courts.

If the committee were seriously interested in learning the facts rather than going after Dr Fauci, it could recommend that congress bestow total immunity on dr Fauci up until the present. This would not give him immunity from a perjury prosecution if he were to testify falsely, but it would immunize him from all other crimes and deny him the right to invoke the fifth amendment. But congress seems more interested in Fauci’s blood than in his truthful testimony.

We will never know the whole truth about the sources and causes of the terrible virus that killed so many people. But we can truly learn from our collective mistakes in responding to the pandemic once it occurred. Dr. Fauci almost certainly has useful information that would help in this process. So 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 question on the ground that his answers might tend to incriminate him.