Rand Paul says he will send a criminal contempt referral to DOJ after Anthony Fauci invoked the Fifth, as GOP lawmakers split

Sen. Rand Paul said he plans to send a criminal contempt referral directly to the Department of Justice after Anthony Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment, a move Fox News reports has sparked a split among some Senate Republicans over the legal and procedural approach. Fox News reported that Paul’s strategy centers on how to translate a congressional contempt claim into potential criminal enforcement. Under Paul’s plan, rather than relying only on Congress to proceed through its own processes, he would refer the matter to DOJ for the department to determine whether criminal contempt charges are warranted. The disagreement among Republicans, as described by Fox, is tied to whether sending a referral in that manner is the right next step, and whether it should bypass or follow other institutional pathways. Fox reported that some GOP lawmakers questioned Paul’s DOJ-forward approach, while Paul maintained that a criminal contempt referral is appropriate following Fauci’s invocation of the Fifth during the underlying dispute. Fifth Amendment invocations in congressional settings generally report that a witness is declining to answer questions on the ground that answers could be used against them in criminal proceedings. When that occurs, lawmakers often argue over how Congress should respond, including whether Congress should pursue contempt and how any referral to law enforcement should be structured. In Paul’s case, Fox reported his stated intention is to move directly toward DOJ for potential criminal consideration. As of publication, Fox’s report did not provide official confirmation from the Department of Justice that it has received any referral or taken any enforcement action in response to Fauci’s testimony. The Department of Justice has not been identified in the available reporting as issuing a charging decision, filing, or other concrete step tied to Paul’s proposed referral. The next procedural question is whether DOJ treats Paul’s intended referral as a request for prosecutorial review, and what information Congress would support for any contempt determination. If DOJ were to proceed, it would do so through its own statutory and constitutional authority, including decisions about evidentiary sufficiency and whether contempt would be pursued. If DOJ declines, Congress would still retain its own institutional options for further action. For lawmakers, the practical stakes are procedural: referrals and contempt decisions can require careful alignment between what Congress alleged, what a witness declined to answer, and what DOJ would need to evaluate a criminal contempt theory. The Fox report underscores that even within the same party, lawmakers are divided over how quickly, and by what mechanism, a congressional dispute involving a Fifth Amendment invocation should be escalated to the executive branch for possible criminal review.