Anthony Fauci Held in Contempt of Congress in Possible Constitutional Precedent on Fifth Amendment
A Senate panel voted Thursday to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress in a move with broad constitutional ramifications.
Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination to avoid answering a Senate panel’s questions last week about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee’s majority vote to hold Fauci in contempt next goes to the Justice Department to decide whether to seek criminal penalties.
In addition, Senate Republicans plan a legislative proposal to bar federal workers from using Fifth Amendment protections to avoid answering questions during congressional oversight hearings.
Fauci is a retired epidemiologist who previously headed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
He invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination 111 times during the nearly three hour hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
Republicans argue the proposal to limit Fifth Amendment rights would increase accountability for public officials. Critics of the idea describe it as a politically driven effort to bypass constitutional safeguards. They also say it could encourage perjury.
The Senate panel called Fauci to testify about his recently released diary entries and notes that indicate he knew U.S.-funded research in China might have contributed to COVID-19, despite his earlier denials.
The National Institutes of Health funded “gain-of-function” research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. Gain-of-function genetically modifies viruses to make them more virulent in an attempt to help develop medicines or vaccines against them.
Epidemiologists sometimes call gain-of-function research an “amplifier.”
In the case of COVID-19, the ongoing debate is whether the coronavirus spread from the laboratory or from bats sold for food at a market in Wuhan.
Fauci’s Jan. 26, 2020 diary entry – before the disease was declared a pandemic – says that "the first infection was in early December and was not connected to the market. … Now we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier."
Other diary entries, notes and conversations with colleagues at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases also indicated Fauci believed the COVID-19 virus escaped from the Wuhan lab, according to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
Paul accused Fauci of privately knowing a lab leak caused the pandemic but publicly claiming the virus jumped from bats to humans in Wuhan.
“The only logical answer is that you were trying to avoid culpability,” Paul said.
After Fauci accused Paul of trying to use him as a scapegoat and an “obsession” for finding criminal fault with him, he refused to answer any questions.
“On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution,” Fauci said persistently throughout the hearing.
As Republicans began accusing Fauci of previously lying to Congress in previous hearings, former President Joe Biden granted him a preemptive pardon in his last days in office in January 2025.
Republicans argue that because Fauci received a blanket federal pardon from Biden, he no longer can invoke his Fifth Amendment right against incrimination.
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.
Justice Dept. Appeals to Supreme Court Over Executive Order on Election Rules
The Trump administration is seeking an emergency ruling from the Supreme Court after a setback in court last week for the president’s effort to revamp election rules.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals blocked an executive order from President Donld Trump to modify election rules ahead of the midterm elections in November.
The Justice Department responded with the appeal to the Supreme Court, saying the First Circuit’s “incursion on the government’s authority imposes irreparable harm on the government by impeding the President’s efforts to secure election integrity.”
The executive order directed the Homeland Security Department to compile lists of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote and to provide them to states. It also instructed the Postal Service to establish new standards for mail-in ballots.
“The cheating on mail-in voting is legendary,” Trump said when he signed his order in March.
The executive order set compliance deadlines that were a significant issue in the court’s decision to deny a Justice Department request to pause the litigation.
Twenty-three states sued to block enforcement of the order.
They said states are empowered under the Constitution to determine how elections are held, not the president. They also said the deadlines are unrealistic.
First a federal district court and then an appellate court ruled Trump exceeded his authority with the order.
The Justice Department had argued that the states’ lawsuit was "premature" because government agencies that would implement the president’s order had not yet finalized their policies for carrying it out.
The states’ primary argument was that under the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution, authority to set the times, places, and manner of elections rests with state legislatures. Congress can override the states’ decisions but not the president, according to the states’ interpretation of the Elections Clause.
The Trump administration claimed its primary constitutional authority for the executive order is Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which requires the president to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."
The laws include criminal statutes that forbid non-U.S. citizens from voting in federal elections. Justice Department attorneys also invoked the president’s authority over federal agencies, including the U.S. Postal Service.
The Boston-based First Circuit disagreed with the Justice Department.
“The [executive order] directs unprecedented levels of involvement by federal officials in how states administer elections,” the court’s ruling said.
The court said in denying the Trump administration’s request to pause the lawsuit that states could not be expected to redesign ballot envelopes, update their election software and alter their procedures before the upcoming midterm election in November.
The deadlines left states with “no practical choice,” the court’s ruling said.
The court also said Justice Department threats of criminal prosecution against state officials for failing to comply with the executive order created impermissible coercion and interference with election administration.
The American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement after the ruling that Trump’s executive order was “yet another attempt by the president to unlawfully take control of elections from the states, deter eligible voters from casting ballots, and sow chaos as the November midterms approach.”
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.
Audiotapes Indicate Biden Knew he Improperly Kept Classified Documents
Newly released audio last week of former President Joe Biden’s interviews with his ghostwriter indicate he knew he had taken classified documents for his personal use when he left the White House.
In one audio, he can be heard saying, “Some of this may be classified, so be careful.”
The audio was released days after Biden abandoned his legal effort to stop the Justice Department from releasing materials from interviews with his book’s ghostwriter.
His attorneys’ voluntary dismissal of his lawsuit cleared the way for a Republican-led House committee and the Heritage Foundation to obtain the recordings and transcripts.
Republicans sought the records while investigating allegations that Biden mishandled classified documents. Some of them were found piled in boxes in his garage.
Biden had argued that he had a privacy right in the interview information.
His ghostwriter interviewed him in 2016 and 2017 as he prepared a book entitled Promise Me, Dad. The book was mostly autobiographical but also discussed the death by cancer of his son.
“I just found all the classified stuff downstairs,” Biden is heard saying in one part of the 70 hours of recordings.
In another audiotape, Biden refers to his notes on a foreign policy issue while he was vice president and tells ghostwriter Mark Lewis Zwonitzer, “They didn’t even know I had this.” Specifics of the subject discussed remains redacted in the audio clips.
Some of the classified information found at Biden’s home mentioned the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan.
Biden had previously denied leaking classified information. Biden said the release of the audio tapes by the Justice Department this week were intended as revenge.
A spokesman for the former president said in a statement, “President Biden’s conversations for a book a decade ago that discussed his late son are private, and were provided to the Department of Justice on the express condition they stay that way. Reversing course and making them public is just the latest example of this Administration weaponizing the DOJ for political retribution.”
The House Judiciary and House Oversight committees were checking for possible violations of the Espionage Act when they ordered an investigation of Biden. The federal law prohibits government officials from retaining or leaking classified information. It can incur criminal penalties.
Biden was investigated by Robert Hur, who was appointed in 2023 as special counsel by the U.S. attorney general. The inquiry was prompted by Biden’s attorneys discovering a small number of classified records inside a locked closet of his former Washington, D.C. office.
Federal agents then found more documents at his Wilmington, Del., home.
Hur’s 345-page report released in February 2024 concluded that Biden "willfully retained and disclosed" sensitive government information but that he should not be prosecuted. He said the evidence fell short of the proof beyond a reasonable doubt needed for conviction.
Hur told the House Judiciary Committee that a potential jury would find Biden to be a "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory" but would be unlikely to find him guilty of intentional criminal behavior.
Similar memory lapses were revealed by the audiotapes released last week.
During one discussion with his ghostwriter, Biden appears to forget what he planned to ask, saying, “Oh gosh. I, I can’t think of what it is.”
Another time he tried to remember the name of an economic advisor but gave up, saying, “I should write the names down because I keep forgetting them.”
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.
Shipping Companies Plead Not Guilty Over Baltimore Bridge Collapse
The legal fallout from the catastrophic collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge reached a critical point last week as attorneys representing the operating companies of the cargo ship Dali entered "not guilty" pleas to federal criminal charges in U.S. District Court.
The pleas were submitted on behalf of Singapore-based Synergy Marine Group and India-based Synergy Maritime Pte Ltd. They are charged with conspiracy, obstruction of an agency proceeding, and making false statements to investigators following the deadly 2024 disaster.
Prosecutors allege the ship’s crew improperly used a "flushing pump" to supply diesel fuel to generators instead of primary pumps that feature automated restart redundancies. Prosecutors argue the wrong pumps prevented the vessel from regaining power in time to avoid the bridge.
Federal prosecutors previously charged the Dali’s chief engineer, Karthikeyan Deenadayalan, alongside the ship's technical superintendent, with violating the Port and Waterways Safety Act for knowingly failing to notify the U.S. Coast Guard of hazardous conditions on board.
In the early morning hours of March 26, 2024, the 984-foot container ship suffered two total electrical blackouts within four minutes after departing the Port of Baltimore. The out of control ship struck a support pier of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing the structure to crumble into the Patapsco River and killing six construction workers who were filling potholes on the span.
The arraignment coincides with a sprawling, multi-billion-dollar civil court battle. U.S. District Judge James Bredar indefinitely postponed what was set to be a five-week civil liability trial after a series of last-minute financial settlements resolved a vast majority of the civil claims.
Among the settlements was a $2.25 billion final agreement between the State of Maryland and the ship’s owner, Grace Ocean Private Ltd., alongside Synergy Marine. The record maritime settlement resolved state claims for bridge destruction, environmental remediation, and lost port revenue. Separate confidential settlements were reached with the families of the deceased workers.
State officials are pursuing additional civil claims against South Korean shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries, citing a National Transportation Safety Board investigation that identified a faulty electrical control wire installed during construction as a primary contributor to the power failure.
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.
Northern Virginia Residents Charged in Nationwide Medicare Fraud Sweep
Defendants in the nationwide healthcare fraud case that that Justice Department says produced $6.5 in fake claims includes at least three Northern Virginia residents.
Charges are being pursued against 455 suspects nationwide for alleged healthcare fraud schemes, such as fake wound care and opioid distribution claims.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia gave details of cases against the local defendants:
– Jair Barbour, 37, of Henrico, was charged with making false statements in billing Medicaid for mental health services totaling $345,670. Barbour, a mental health provider, submitted hundreds of falsified progress notes describing mental health sessions that never occurred, dramatically overstated the number of hours she worked, and documented services that were impossible due to overlapping or conflicting times, according to the Justice Department.
– Mikia Noble, 37, of North Chesterfield, was charged with conspiracy to commit health care fraud in connection with a crisis mental health services fraud scheme against Virginia Medicaid. Noble, chief operating officer of Advancing Communities Everywhere, is accused of conspiring to target low-income, often homeless, Medicaid recipients by claiming to provide them with mental health services that they never received and often did not need, according to the Justice Department.
Noble and others submitted about $49.6 million in false and fraudulent claims to Medicaid, of which $38.6 million was paid, prosecutors said.
– Abdul Rehman Sirhandi, 57, of Aldie, was charged with conspiring to make false statements in health care fraud matters in connection with a durable medical equipment fraud scheme.
Prosecutors say Sirhandi acted as the straw owner of a medical equipment company, Pulse Medical Supply, and conspired with others in Texas and Pakistan to submit $780,627 in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare, of which approximately $313,233 was paid.
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.