Senator Blumenthal accuses Paul of pursuing McCarthy-style campaign against Fauci

A Democratic senator accused the GOP committee chair of employing similar tactics to former Sen. Joseph McCarthy, known for leading aggressive anti-communist investigations, at a contentious hearing with former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci on Tuesday.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., cited two X posts by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., from December of 2024 and 2025 that were mentioned in a statement by Fauci’s attorney, David Schertler, after being thrown out of the Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing for trying to make a statement as his client repeatedly invoked the 5th Amendment to avoid answering questions.

Paul's posts read: “the power of some of us must be used for good, like putting Fauci in jail,” and “I want to give him a subpoena and a jail cell.”

Blumenthal said both statements foster a “well-founded fear” that the hearing is an effort to “trap Dr. Fauci in some kind of criminal wrongdoing,” which is not a congressional hearing’s purpose to him.

“During some of the dark days in this body, under Senator Joe McCarthy, it became standard operating procedure to seek that kind of prosecutorial objective,” Blumenthal continued. 

McCarthy was known for his aggressive and unproven accusations against government officials, specifically during 1954's Army-McCarthy hearings. He ultimately faced a Senate censure — a formal, public statement of disapproval that reprimands unacceptable behavior — and died in 1957.

“We should not be part of a rerun of that kind of effort,” Blumenthal said.

The Democratic senator then read aloud a statement issued by Schertler, clarifying that it was in reference to Paul, and asked it to be included in the record: 

“This year's-long public crusade against Dr. Fauci makes one thing clear: this is not a serious effort to seek information from Dr. Fauci in a transcribed interview for a valid legislative purpose. You are single-mindedly fixated on seeing Dr. Fauci prosecuted for imaginary crimes, and you are so invested in that outcome that you have created a personal brand around it.”

Fauci has "saved lives," Blumenthal continued. He noted that Republicans are eagerly rebranding the former NIAID director, who invoked his Fifth Amendment right during the hearing to decline answering questions, as a villain to distract from "their own failure to protect Americans from soaring healthcare costs."

Paul has accused Fauci of funding research in China that created the COVID-19 virus, ultimately beginning the pandemic, and then lying about it to Congress. The Kentucky Republican this week published over 1,000 pages of Fauci's notes from the pandemic, which triggered renewed debate over whether his private thinking about the virus's origins differed from public statements.

Katherine Pugh is a reporter for Just the News. Follow her on X for more coverage.