On Thursday, August 6, 2026, a Senate committee prepared to vote on whether to hold former chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress. The move comes after Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment and declined to answer questions during a hearing focused on the United States' Covid-19 response.

Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire commented on the situation, emphasizing the need for a "serious bipartisan examination into what went well and what went wrong during our country’s response to the pandemic." However, she criticized the recent hearing as being designed to "target a single doctor and dedicated public servant, who has testified before Congress many times before, and they wanted to blame him for everything that went wrong during the pandemic."

Senator Hassan also defended Fauci's decision to invoke the Fifth Amendment, stating he had "little choice but to invoke his constitutional right to not walk directly into a trap."

The hearing and forthcoming vote highlight ongoing tensions in Congress over accountability and the handling of the pandemic.

Sources