Bernie Moreno

WASHINGTON - U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno says he expects the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress next week, following the retired immunologist’s refusal to answer its questions at a Wednesday hearing.

“I believe what he did today was contempt of Congress,” the Westlake Republican told radio host Scott Jennings after unleashing an expletive-filled attack on Fauci at the hearing. “This guy’s got to be held accountable. People paid a price. He needs to pay a price.”

Committee Chairman Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, has scheduled a hearing next week to consider the contempt question.

Related: Sen. Moreno unleashes expletive-filled attack on Fauci at Senate hearing

A committee vote would be only the first step. Under federal law, a contempt citation approved by committee must then go to the floor of the full Senate, where a majority vote is required to adopt the resolution and certify it to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.

If the Justice Department decides to prosecute the case and obtains a conviction, penalties include a fine of up to $100,000 and imprisonment of between one month and 12 months.

Contempt votes don’t always lead to prosecution. In 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to hold then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress at the urging of Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, after Garland refused to give his committee audio of President Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.

The Justice Department declined to prosecute Garland, holding that Garland’s actions were protected by executive privilege.

Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right throughout Wednesday’s hearing rather than answer questions about the origins of COVID-19 and his handling of the pandemic.

Before he declined to answer the committee’s questions, Fauci delivered a statement that said he’d testified before Congress well over 200 times during his 38 years as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He said much of that testimony included providing on-the-record answers to questions about the COVID-19 pandemic.

Paul has repeatedly argued Fauci should be jailed. He said on social media that a pardon President Joe Biden gave Fauci before he left office to prevent vengeful prosecution by the Trump administration wouldn’t shield him from criminal charges if lies to Congress now.

“Given Senator Paul’s obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently, his publicly releasing my unredacted diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, the only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up in his words ‘behind bars,’” said Fauci.

Moreno said Fauci’s refusal to answer even basic, non-incriminating questions showed contempt.

“He wouldn’t even answer normal questions like what day of the week is it,” Moreno told Jennings. “That’s obviously patently absurd. So this is the exact definition of contempt.”

Asked what happens if the committee votes to hold Fauci in contempt, Moreno pointed to potential jail time.

“He should be held accountable,” Moreno said. “That means jail.”

During Wednesday’s hearing, Moreno told Fauci that outrage over pandemic-era restrictions spurred him to seek public office and asking the retired immunologist “Who the (expletive) do you think you were” for imposing them.

He then asked members of the audience, who included Fox News host Laura Ingraham, to stand up if they “were called a racist for calling the virus a Wuhan virus or the China virus,” or thought they shouldn’t take the vaccine, that “the six foot rule was total crap,” and “closing schools was catastrophically stupid, and that you thought that during these times saying these things made you somehow a lesser human being.”

Fauci rejected Moreno’s entreaty to “just turn around and look at the people behind you.” Fauci also didn’t respond to Moreno’s request that he “apologize to the people who you harmed through your actions.”

In his interview with Jennings, Moreno decried Democrats for continuing to hold Fauci in high esteem.

“What socialist Democrats fantasize about is control of people, and that’s what Fauci showed them how to do,” Moreno said

Moreno also decried Fauci for entries he made in a diary that Paul released several days before Fauci’s Wednesday committee appearance.

The 1,141-page document contains Fauci’s personal entries from Jan. 6, 2020, through Dec. 17, 2022. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said he found the material on government servers and provided the records to Paul’s committee.

The diary describes Fauci’s efforts to shape the government’s response to COVID-19, chronicles his media appearances and clashes with Republicans like Paul and Jordan, and documents his reactions to attaining celebrity status during the pandemic.

“Can you imagine at the end of the day what this guy’s priorities were?” Moreno told Jennings. “I’m the most talked about, sexiest man alive. What a depraved, depraved S.O.B.”