{"id":22723,"date":"2026-07-31T04:17:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T23:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=22723"},"modified":"2026-07-31T04:17:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T23:17:12","slug":"what-it-means-to-plead-the-fifth-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=22723","title":{"rendered":"What It Means to Plead the Fifth Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"paragraph-content\">\n<p><h2 id=\"why-did-fauci-invoke-the-fifth-amendment\" class=\"scroll-mt-24 font-editorial text-black-coffee text-mobile-h2 lg:scroll-mt-28 lg:text-h2 mb-4\">Why did Fauci invoke the Fifth Amendment?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">In his opening statement to the Senate committee on Wednesday, Fauci accused Paul of having an \u201cobvious obsession with calling for my prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">\u201cThe 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, \u2018behind bars,\u2019\u201d Fauci said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">\u201cAlthough it pains me to do so because of the respect that I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress,\u201d he said, \u201cunder the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">Shortly before former President Joe Biden left office, in January 2025, he preemptively <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/pardon\/media\/1385746\/dl?inline\" target=\"undefined\">pardoned<\/a> Fauci. Biden said he was issuing the pardon to shield Fauci from \u201cpolitically motivated prosecutions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why did Fauci invoke the Fifth Amendment? In his opening statement to the Senate committee on Wednesday, Fauci accused Paul of having an \u201cobvious obsession with calling for my prosecution.\u201d \u201cThe only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22724,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static.time.com\/v3\/assets\/bltea6093859af6183b\/blta0e6facade5c25f8\/6a6bd9523e83ff5eff61bddb\/fifth-amendment-fauci-rand-paul-senate-hearing.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}