WASHINGTON—A Republican-led Senate committee voted Thursday to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer lawmakers’ questions about his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, escalating a yearslong GOP effort to scrutinize one of the nation’s top former health officials.

Senators voted 8-5 on the resolution, which was brought by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s chairman, Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.). It seeks to refer the case directly to the Justice Department for potential prosecution, bypassing a vote from the full Senate.

“Seeking the truth is not a witch hunt,” Paul said before the vote. “Accountability is not vengeance. Accountability is what stands between the American people and a repeat of the mistakes and the very real consequences of the past.”

Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the committee, criticized his Republican counterparts for pushing a resolution that he said “disregard’s constitutional protections long protected by the U.S. Senate.”

“This investigation has been one-sided from the beginning,” he said. “Information has been selectively released to support conclusions that the chairman reached years ago.”

Multiple efforts by Democrats by Democrats to table the vote failed amid opposition from Republicans.

The vote came just over a week after Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times before the same committee, following the release of diaries he kept that shed new light on his response to the pandemic. It also comes after the Homeland Security panel’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations obtained what a spokeswoman said was a copy of the doctor’s iPhone records from his time working for the government.

It is unclear how the Justice Department, which has shown a willingness to investigate President Trump’s political adversaries, would approach the contempt issue. Fauci, 85 years old, received a pre-emptive pardon from President Joe Biden, who sought to shield him and other officials from anticipated prosecution by Trump and his allies. During the pandemic, Fauci was serving as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a role he held for decades.

The vote comes as legal and political pressure on Fauci builds, with top Republicans in Washington pressing for additional documents and at least four Republican-led states launching their own investigations.

The doctor’s recently released Covid-era diaries are only a fraction of the material now in congressional investigators’ hands. Lawyers for the Department of Health and Human Services turned over millions of pages of Fauci-related documents to Sens. Paul and Ron Johnson (R., Wis.), who chairs the Senate subcommittee that is also investigating Fauci and obtained the phone records, according to people familiar with the matter.

Fauci, who retired from government in 2022, played a central role in the coronavirus pandemic response, which began in earnest in early 2020 and consumed much of the final year of Trump’s first term. He advocated for extreme caution as scientists rushed to figure out just how transmissible and deadly the virus was, at times breaking with the administration’s public-health approach.

Many Republicans and Trump administration officials, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have accused Fauci of working to discredit the lab-leak theory of the virus’s origin and obscuring scientific uncertainty while pushing strict health measures.

A spokeswoman for Johnson said the office has “not had time to count” the number of pages they received from HHS. “There are many other records, including at least two government devices connected to Dr. Fauci, that HHS has not yet produced to Chairman Johnson.”

For now, Fauci and his team are preparing for the political and legal battles ahead while maintaining confidence that none of the investigations will yield credible charges. They have portrayed Paul’s yearslong pursuit of Fauci as evidence that the investigation is politically driven, while privately noting that Paul’s previous referrals of Fauci to the Justice Department for potential prosecution—including one under the current Trump administration—didn’t result in charges.

The congressional effort is unfolding alongside a push by Republican officials to pursue Fauci through other legal avenues. This week, Oklahoma became the latest state to launch an inquiry into whether Fauci’s actions during the pandemic violated state law, following similar investigations announced in Florida, Alabama and Louisiana.

“We’re going to look at what he knew and when he knew it, what he knew at the same time he was pushing safety and efficacy,” said Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, while adding he would also examine whether Fauci financially benefited from his pandemic advice. “Nothing is off the table here in Florida.”

Calling it a “broad inquiry,” Uthmeier said it was too early to pinpoint what specific action might result but said Florida law on deceptive trade practices, fraud or public nuisances could be invoked. Uthmeier said Fauci’s diaries provide new evidence of “lies and deception” and said he was alarmed by the doctor repeatedly invoking the Fifth Amendment.

Officials in Louisiana said their investigation is more narrow. The state’s attorney general, Liz Murrill, said her office is probing whether Fauci’s diary entries contradict what he said in sworn testimony he gave as part of a 2022 lawsuit in which the state accused the Biden administration of pressuring social-media companies to censor conservative viewpoints about the Covid vaccine and pandemic-era lockdowns and restrictions.

“I think that the public has a right to know what was motivating Dr. Fauci to say and do the things that he did because they certainly had an enormous impact on the public,” said Murrill.

Fauci’s lawyers have maintained that he committed no criminal wrongdoing. His decision to plead the Fifth, according to people familiar with his legal strategy, was designed in part to avoid what his legal team believed was a perjury trap. They pointed to investigations targeting other perceived Trump adversaries, including former special counsel Jack Smith, who was referred to the Justice Department last month by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) over allegations that he made false statements to Congress last year.

Murrill, the Louisiana attorney general, said her office’s investigation is only just beginning but acknowledged that states including her own would face obstacles in pursuing charges.

“I do think that for a lot of states, it’s going to be a pretty heavy lift because of the statutes of limitation that apply to these types of crimes,” Murrill said. “We aren’t limited by the federal pardon, but that doesn’t mean that it would be easy for us to bring charges.”

WASHINGTON—A Republican-led Senate committee voted Thursday to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer lawmakers’ questions about his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, escalating a yearslong GOP effort to scrutinize one of the nation’s top former health officials.

Senators voted 8-5 on the resolution, which was brought by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s chairman, Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.). It seeks to refer the case directly to the Justice Department for potential prosecution, bypassing a vote from the full Senate.

“Seeking the truth is not a witch hunt,” Paul said before the vote. “Accountability is not vengeance. Accountability is what stands between the American people and a repeat of the mistakes and the very real consequences of the past.”

Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the committee, criticized his Republican counterparts for pushing a resolution that he said “disregard’s constitutional protections long protected by the U.S. Senate.”

“This investigation has been one-sided from the beginning,” he said. “Information has been selectively released to support conclusions that the chairman reached years ago.”

Multiple efforts by Democrats by Democrats to table the vote failed amid opposition from Republicans.

The vote came just over a week after Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times before the same committee, following the release of diaries he kept that shed new light on his response to the pandemic. It also comes after the Homeland Security panel’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations obtained what a spokeswoman said was a copy of the doctor’s iPhone records from his time working for the government.

It is unclear how the Justice Department, which has shown a willingness to investigate President Trump’s political adversaries, would approach the contempt issue. Fauci, 85 years old, received a pre-emptive pardon from President Joe Biden, who sought to shield him and other officials from anticipated prosecution by Trump and his allies. During the pandemic, Fauci was serving as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a role he held for decades.

The vote comes as legal and political pressure on Fauci builds, with top Republicans in Washington pressing for additional documents and at least four Republican-led states launching their own investigations.

The doctor’s recently released Covid-era diaries are only a fraction of the material now in congressional investigators’ hands. Lawyers for the Department of Health and Human Services turned over millions of pages of Fauci-related documents to Sens. Paul and Ron Johnson (R., Wis.), who chairs the Senate subcommittee that is also investigating Fauci and obtained the phone records, according to people familiar with the matter.

Fauci, who retired from government in 2022, played a central role in the coronavirus pandemic response, which began in earnest in early 2020 and consumed much of the final year of Trump’s first term. He advocated for extreme caution as scientists rushed to figure out just how transmissible and deadly the virus was, at times breaking with the administration’s public-health approach.

Many Republicans and Trump administration officials, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have accused Fauci of working to discredit the lab-leak theory of the virus’s origin and obscuring scientific uncertainty while pushing strict health measures.

A spokeswoman for Johnson said the office has “not had time to count” the number of pages they received from HHS. “There are many other records, including at least two government devices connected to Dr. Fauci, that HHS has not yet produced to Chairman Johnson.”

For now, Fauci and his team are preparing for the political and legal battles ahead while maintaining confidence that none of the investigations will yield credible charges. They have portrayed Paul’s yearslong pursuit of Fauci as evidence that the investigation is politically driven, while privately noting that Paul’s previous referrals of Fauci to the Justice Department for potential prosecution—including one under the current Trump administration—didn’t result in charges.

The congressional effort is unfolding alongside a push by Republican officials to pursue Fauci through other legal avenues. This week, Oklahoma became the latest state to launch an inquiry into whether Fauci’s actions during the pandemic violated state law, following similar investigations announced in Florida, Alabama and Louisiana.

“We’re going to look at what he knew and when he knew it, what he knew at the same time he was pushing safety and efficacy,” said Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, while adding he would also examine whether Fauci financially benefited from his pandemic advice. “Nothing is off the table here in Florida.”

Calling it a “broad inquiry,” Uthmeier said it was too early to pinpoint what specific action might result but said Florida law on deceptive trade practices, fraud or public nuisances could be invoked. Uthmeier said Fauci’s diaries provide new evidence of “lies and deception” and said he was alarmed by the doctor repeatedly invoking the Fifth Amendment.

Officials in Louisiana said their investigation is more narrow. The state’s attorney general, Liz Murrill, said her office is probing whether Fauci’s diary entries contradict what he said in sworn testimony he gave as part of a 2022 lawsuit in which the state accused the Biden administration of pressuring social-media companies to censor conservative viewpoints about the Covid vaccine and pandemic-era lockdowns and restrictions.

“I think that the public has a right to know what was motivating Dr. Fauci to say and do the things that he did because they certainly had an enormous impact on the public,” said Murrill.

Fauci’s lawyers have maintained that he committed no criminal wrongdoing. His decision to plead the Fifth, according to people familiar with his legal strategy, was designed in part to avoid what his legal team believed was a perjury trap. They pointed to investigations targeting other perceived Trump adversaries, including former special counsel Jack Smith, who was referred to the Justice Department last month by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) over allegations that he made false statements to Congress last year.

Murrill, the Louisiana attorney general, said her office’s investigation is only just beginning but acknowledged that states including her own would face obstacles in pursuing charges.

“I do think that for a lot of states, it’s going to be a pretty heavy lift because of the statutes of limitation that apply to these types of crimes,” Murrill said. “We aren’t limited by the federal pardon, but that doesn’t mean that it would be easy for us to bring charges.”