President Donald Trump is weighing in after one of the most closely watched congressional hearings of the year, offering a nuanced response to a political and legal controversy that continues to fuel debate in Washington.
The president addressed both former President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon Dr. Anthony Fauci and Fauci’s decision to repeatedly invoke the Fifth Amendment during testimony before the Senate, drawing a distinction between the two issues.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump said he respects Biden’s constitutional authority to pardon Fauci, even as he criticized the retired public health official for refusing to answer questions before Congress.
“The most powerful thing a president has, they say, is the power of pardon,” Trump said.
“So he was pardoned by Biden, and I respect that. I know how powerful it is.”
Biden issued Fauci a preemptive pardon on his final day in office, covering potential federal offenses committed between Jan. 1, 2014, and Jan. 19, 2025.
The pardon came roughly two years after Fauci retired following nearly four decades as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and after serving as one of the nation’s most recognizable public health officials during the COVID-19 pandemic.
While acknowledging the broad constitutional pardon power, Trump questioned whether Biden personally approved the action because of ongoing Republican concerns surrounding the former president’s use of an autopen.
“He probably didn’t sign this one,” Trump said.
“So, I can’t tell you what the law is.”
The president added that he has heard legal arguments suggesting additional documentation could become relevant if questions arise about how pardons were authorized.
“Maybe there’s something on the autopen,” Trump said.
“Other than that, the power of pardon is very powerful.”
Trump’s comments came only hours after Fauci testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
During the hearing, Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 111 times rather than answering questions from Republican lawmakers.
In his opening statement, Fauci argued the hearing was politically motivated and accused committee chairman Sen. Rand Paul of seeking to build a criminal case against him.
“The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars,’” Fauci said.
Before the hearing began, Paul released thousands of pages of Fauci’s diary entries spanning 2019 through 2022, covering much of the federal government’s response to the pandemic.
Following the hearing, Paul announced he intends to ask the committee to vote next week on holding Fauci in contempt of Congress.
Trump sharply criticized Fauci’s decision to invoke the Fifth Amendment.
“Terrible,” the president said when asked about the testimony.
Trump also reflected on Fauci’s long government career, noting that he was already serving in federal office decades before Trump entered politics.
“I inherited Fauci,” Trump said.
“He was here from the 1980s.”
The president reiterated that he frequently disagreed with Fauci’s recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I would’ve had to close down the whole country if I listened to him,” Trump said.
The Senate committee is expected to consider Paul’s proposed contempt resolution in the coming days, The Hill reported.
Meanwhile, questions surrounding Fauci’s testimony, Biden’s pardon and the legal implications of presidential pardons are likely to remain central topics as congressional Republicans continue investigating the federal government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
