Fauci invokes Fifth Amendment in showdown with Republican lawmakers
The former top US health official, Dr Anthony Fauci, invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to testify before the Senate Homeland Security Committee to avoid the possibility that Republicans might try to prosecute him for perjury.
Fauci is appearing under subpoena after Senator Rand Paul's office released diary entries Fauci wrote during his time leading the country's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Invoking the Fifth Amendment is the right of someone to protect themselves from self-incrimination by refusing to testify or produce information. The phrase, 'Pleading the Fifth', known to many from legal dramas and courtroom scenes in films, refers to the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, which says that no-one "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself".
