By ERIC TUCKER

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Senate committee on Thursday voted to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress and refer him to the Justice Department for potential prosecution over his refusal to answer questions at a hearing last week focused on his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The party-line vote approving the contempt resolution came a week after Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, the committee chairman, said that constitutional protection did not apply since Fauci last year received a pardon from Democratic President Joe Biden and thus did not have to worry about the threat of prosecution. Fauci and Democrats who opposed the contempt resolution said he had a well-founded fear of self-incrimination given a public desire by Republicans to seek his prosecution.

“Dr. Fauci faced no risk of federal prosecution,” Paul said at the outset of a hearing. “All he had to do was tell the truth.”

Paul noted that the vote had nothing to do with Fauci’s policies, opinions or anything he has said in previous congressional appearances.

Instead, the senator said, “We are voting on whether a witness who has received the benefit of a sweeping pardon can be ordered by this committee to answer questions and then defy that order without consequence.”

Fauci, in a statement explaining his decision to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights, said he had good reason to fear the possibility of criminal charges given what he said was Paul’s determination “to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, quote, behind bars, unquote.”

The pardon from Biden covered acts from 2014 through the January 2025 day it was issued. It does not shield Fauci from state-level prosecutions or from investigations into any testimony that he did give that lawmakers thought was false.

The referral goes to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, which will decide whether or not to investigate or potentially attempt to prosecute the doctor for contempt.

Paul, who has previously sent referrals on Fauci on his own, acknowledged on Wednesday that contempt resolutions have often gone through the full Senate but said he did not “want to waste time” with that route. The resolution there would be unlikely to muster the required 60 votes needed to advance.

No matter the outcome, the episode raises fresh and complicated questions about lawmakers’ ability to compel testimony from previously pardoned witnesses — and the outcome could resonate beyond Fauci given the possibility that Trump may also grant clemency to his own aides before leaving the White House.

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AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.