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A House GOP proposal would bar Dr. Anthony Fauci from working for the federal government again after his dramatic hearing on Capitol Hill this week.
Fauci appeared before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, chaired by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., where he invoked the Fifth Amendment over 100 times.
Republicans have been hammering the former public health official over the move, and now a new bill by Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., would bar him from returning to his old duties and potentially open him to criminal prosecution.
RAND PAUL SEEKS CONTEMPT CHARGES AFTER FAUCI INVOKES FIFTH AMENDMENT MORE THAN 100 TIMES
“We saw him evade so many questions, pleading the Fifth… that’s fine, that’s your constitutional right,” McCormick said in a video shared with Fox News Digital. “But you also have the right, if your till comes up short at Burger King, when your boss asks you why are you short $20 in your cash register — if you plead the Fifth, that’s your… ability, but I can fire you.”
He argued, “It should be the same way in government. If you don’t want to answer questions about what you did wrong, we should be able to fire you.”
The bill, called the STOP the SWAMP Act, would bar people from working for the federal government if they refuse to answer certain questions from federal lawmakers or if they are convicted of perjury, according to a news release on McCormick’s website.
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It would also authorize members of Congress to refer hearing witnesses for prosecution if they were found to have unlawfully withheld information from lawmakers, the release said.
Fauci is not currently facing any criminal charges and has consistently denied any wrongdoing. But Paul, a longtime critic of Fauci’s, said his committee would begin the process for holding the doctor in contempt of Congress after the hearing.
Fauci appeared before the Senate GOP-led panel on Wednesday amid new scrutiny over how he handled the COVID-19 pandemic, following the release of a diary he kept during the global health crisis.
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Diary entries made public by Paul ahead of the hearing showed the high-profile doctor reflecting on his pandemic-era fame and discussing the disease’s origins.
Some entries appeared to show Fauci taking credit for influencing policies that closed schools during the pandemic, one of the most hotly debated aspects of how the government handled COVID.
He told the House Oversight Committee in January 2024, however, “I did not close the schools.”
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The longtime doctor became the public face of the U.S. government’s COVID-19 response and drew both praise and criticism.
He previously served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022.
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