Dr. Anthony Fauci’s refusal to answer more than 100 questions during Wednesday’s fiery Senate hearing has sparked a legal showdown over whether a witness granted a sweeping presidential pardon can still invoke the Fifth Amendment.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, announced after the hearing that he plans to pursue contempt proceedings against Fauci following the repeated invocations of the Fof whetherth Amendment and his refusal to answer lawmakers’ questions.

«We’re going to have a vote next week on contempt,» Paul said. «I think there’s another legal question that the courts may have to decide upon, and that is whether or not a presidential pardon offers you complete immunity.»

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Former President Joe Biden issued Fauci, who served as the chief architect for the government’s COVID-19 guidelines, a full and unconditional pardon for all actions taken between Jan. 1, 2014, and Jan. 19, 2025. Biden’s broad pardon protected Fauci from prosecution for the actions being investigated by the committee, leaving only the possibility of charges if he lied under oath.

Abhishek Kambli, a former Justice Department official who now represents former Trump advisor Peter Navarro in his contempt of Congress case, told Fox News Digital that the issue presents a novel legal question about whether Fauci can invoke the Fifth Amendment at all.

«Obviously, if he tells the truth, then he would be protected by that blanket pardon, since the past conduct that he reveals he’s fully immunized from,» Kambli told Fox News Digital.

Kambli questioned whether the Fifth Amendment privilege properly applies if truthful testimony could no longer expose Fauci to prosecution for the underlying conduct.

«His theory is that it’s a witch hunt and that they’re looking for perjury traps to charge him with, so that’s why he needs to invoke the Fifth Amendment,» Kambli said.

But Kambli said the argument becomes more difficult to sustain if lawmakers are asking straightforward factual questions.

«I think it gets a little problematic,» Kambli said of Fauci invoking the Fifth Amendment for common knowledge questions like what day of the week it is.

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The attorney for former NIH Director Anthony Fauci (R), David Schertler (L), is removed from the hearing room at the direction of committee chairman Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) during a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee July 29, 2026 in Washington, DC. Fauci declined to answer questions from the oommittee asserting his fifth amendment right during the hearing. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

«If it’s just factual questions that he should know the answer on, it’s hard to see how he would walk into a perjury trap if he’s just telling the truth, because perjury also requires that you knowingly made a false statement,» Kambli said. «If he had an incorrect recollection, that was an innocent mistake that typically wouldn’t lead to a perjury charge.»

Kambli said federal law distinguishes between witnesses who ignore a congressional subpoena and those who appear before Congress but refuse to answer questions. In the latter case, he said, prosecutors generally do not have to prove the witness intentionally violated the law. Instead, the central question is whether the witness had a valid legal basis for refusing to answer, such as a legitimate claim under the Fifth Amendment.

«The issue is [the witness] is already protected if he tells the truth, and it’s only if he knowingly lies about something material that he can be charged,» Kambli said. «So the issue becomes whether the Senate can make a referral to DOJ based on that.»

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said the legal issues surrounding Fauci’s testimony are more complicated than either side suggests.

«The only risk that he faced would come from any false statements that he made in the hearing in dealing with these questions,» Turley told Fox News Digital. «That would likely be viewed as sufficient, particularly since some questions could extend to statements and conduct from after the pardon grant.»

Turley also pointed to Fauci’s decision to deliver an opening statement before invoking the Fifth Amendment, suggesting it could raise additional legal questions.

«There are also questions about the questions limited to the period of his pardon as well as his decision to give an opening statement before invocation. Those are possible grounds for contempt. It would raise novel issues, though there is precedent from the Lois Lerner matter,» Turley said.

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Former NIH Director Anthony Fauci testifies before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in Washington, D.C., on July 29, 2026. Fauci was expected to be questioned about his diary entries during his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Getty Images)

Turley was referring to former IRS official Lois Lerner, who declared her innocence in a voluntary opening statement before invoking the Fifth Amendment during a 2013 congressional hearing. House Republicans argued Lerner waived her right to invoke the Fifth Amendment when she made statements about the very subject under investigation. Although the House held Lerner in contempt, the Justice Department later declined to pursue criminal contempt charges.

But Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, argued Paul’s position is stronger than Fauci’s.

«He can’t be prosecuted by the federal government for any actions he took during the period the pardon covers,» von Spakovsky said. «However, if he lies while under oath at his hearing today about any of those prior actions, he could be prosecuted for perjury.»

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While von Spakovsky acknowledged that Biden’s pardon of Fauci covers only federal charges, it does not shield Fauci from facing state charges. But he noted no state has accused Fauci of violating state law, at least not yet. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Wednesday announced a state investigation into Fauci, following his testimony on Capitol Hill.

«The possibility of a state prosecution is almost nonexistent because states generally cannot prosecute federal officials acting within the scope of their duties and Fauci would argue that everything he did over COVID was carried out in his official slot as head of NIAID,» von Spakovsky told Fox News Digital.

«The only reason for him to take the Fifth is because he doesn’t want to admit, based on his personal diaries, that he lied repeatedly to the public and Congress when he was head of the NIAID,» von Spakovsky said.

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If Paul’s contempt resolution clears the committee, it would move to the full Senate, but it will need to beat the 60-vote filibuster in order to pass.

Fox News Digital reached out to Fauci’s attorney, David Schertler, for comment.

Efectos

Poland, the closest NATO member to the Ukraine-Russia war, scrambled fighter jets and placed its air defenses on high alert early Thursday as Russia launched more than 70 missiles and roughly 280 drones across Ukraine, killing at least eight and wounding dozens from Kyiv to the western city of Lviv.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, just returning from this week’s U.S. visit with President Donald Trump and the funeral of late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the barrage exposed a critical shortage of Western-supplied interceptors, particularly against ballistic missiles.

«The protection of people’s lives depends directly on their willingness» to provide Ukraine with air-defense missiles, Zelenskyy said of Kyiv’s allies.

Hours later Thursday morning, the European Union disbursed $4 billion to Ukraine to finance the procurement of more drones, missiles, air defense and fighter jets, according to the European Commission.

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The disbursement is part of a more than $100 billion loan approved by the EU earlier this year and follows the roughly $3.5 billion installment on June 25 and $4.5 billion on June 30.

Polish forces detected an unidentified object moving west through the country’s airspace shortly before 4 a.m. An F-16 was dispatched to intercept it, but the object disappeared from radar minutes later. Authorities subsequently found a crater about 33 feet wide and scattered debris in farmland near Tarnawa-Kolonia, about 1.2 miles from the closest buildings.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said initial evidence indicated the object was a Russian Kh-101 missile, although investigators were still working to confirm its type and origin.

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Emergency workers use heavy equipment to clear rubble from apartment buildings in Lviv, the westernmost city in Ukraine and the closest to NATO ally Poland, after a Russian missile attack Thursday, July 30, 2026. (Anadolu)

«All the indications are that it was a Russian Kh-101,» Tusk said, adding that Polish forces were prepared to shoot it down if it had continued flying toward a populated area.

He added the U.S. is interested in joining the investigation, which has initially determined the missile was not intended for Poland territory. The fate of the Ukraine-Russian war might be decided within the next 100 days, Tusk told reporters.

The threat to a NATO ally is a new frontier in the long-running war and comes after Zelenskyy pressed senators to advance Graham’s sweeping sanctions package. Also, Trump and Zelenskyy discussed U.S. licenses allowing Ukraine to produce Patriot interceptors, along with other defense cooperation and efforts to revive stalled diplomacy with Moscow.

Six people, including two girls ages 5 and 12, were killed when a Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile struck a private home housing a large family near Kryvyi Rih, according to local officials. Seven others were reported killed in Kyiv and elsewhere in the Dnipropetrovsk and Poltava regions as the casualty count rose during rescue operations.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President Donald Trump at the White House during his Tuesday visit to Washington, D.C.

«A dark night,» Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of Kryvyi Rih’s defense council, wrote on Telegram. Eight people were wounded in the strike on the home.

The person killed in Kyiv was a 31-year-old man, while two others were wounded, according to Ukrainian police. Russian strikes damaged residential buildings, vehicles, storage facilities, a market and a garage complex in the capital, where air raid warnings lasted more than five hours and thousands of residents sheltered in subway stations.

In Lviv, about 40 miles from the Polish border, emergency crews searched damaged apartment buildings for people trapped beneath concrete and debris. Thirty people, including children, were reported injured. More than 20 residential buildings, a school and two kindergartens were damaged, officials said.

«I was terrified watching the rescuers go beneath those concrete slabs,» one Lviv resident told Reuters as crews pulled a boy from a damaged building.

Ukraine’s air force said its defenses intercepted 55 missiles and 265 drones. But only one of nine ballistic missiles was shot down, while 11 missiles and 17 drones struck targets at 20 locations.

The U.S.-made Patriot is the only system currently in Ukraine’s arsenal capable of reliably intercepting Russian ballistic missiles, which travel at several times the speed of sound. Zelenskyy has repeatedly warned that Patriot interceptors are arriving too slowly and in insufficient numbers.

During his Tuesday meeting with Trump, Zelenskyy said the leaders discussed licenses for Patriot interceptor production in Ukraine. He also met with Lockheed Martin executives and told senators that domestic production would be a long-term solution but would not address Ukraine’s immediate shortage of missiles. European countries have offered to pay for additional U.S.-made interceptors.

Zelenskyy’s Washington visit coincided with Senate consideration of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, named for the longtime defense hawk and outspoken Ukraine supporter who died unexpectedly earlier this month.

The Senate voted 86-12 Tuesday to clear an initial procedural hurdle and voted 84-12 Wednesday to formally proceed with the legislation. Additional votes were still required before final passage.

The package would impose sanctions on Russian officials, oligarchs, financial institutions, energy projects and vessels accused of helping Moscow evade existing restrictions. It would also authorize tariffs of up to 100% on goods from the five largest purchasers of Russian oil and natural gas and the leading countries facilitating sanctions evasion.

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Graham negotiated the revised package with the White House shortly before his death. The legislation also includes an extension of sanctions targeting Iran’s energy and weapons sectors, a provision sought by the Trump administration.

Zelenskyy met with a bipartisan group of senators before the procedural votes and called the legislation an important signal to Russia, Europe and the Ukrainian people. He watched the Senate vote from the chamber’s gallery after attending Graham’s funeral at Washington National Cathedral.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.