President Trump says he has not spoken with his top prosecutors about pursuing a case against Dr. Anthony Fauci, even as the Senate contempt referral lands on their desks.

Trump told reporters Monday that he has had no conversations with Attorney General Todd Blanche or U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro about prosecuting the former public health official. "I have not spoken to him about that, no," Trump told reporters. The remark came days after the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 8-5 along party lines to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress.

The referral now sits with the Justice Department and Pirro's office, both of which must decide whether to act. DOJ confirmed it received the referral and said it is reviewing the matter. No charges have been filed.

What triggered the contempt vote: Fauci appeared before the committee on July 29 under subpoena and invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times. Fox News reported the precise count at 111 invocations. He refused to answer questions about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic during his years leading the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the post he held until retiring in 2022.

Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the committee, did not wait for the full Senate to act. He announced Thursday that his panel would hand-carry the contempt referral directly to Blanche and to the D.C.-based federal court, bypassing the standard route of a full Senate floor vote, which would require 60 votes to pass.

Paul bypassed the full Senate to speed the referral along

That procedural shortcut drew immediate attention. Paul framed it as a matter of urgency. "This way, we don't sit a month waiting to determine whether or not we bring it to the Senate floor," the Washington Examiner reported Paul saying. He also cast the contempt vote as a direct test of whether a pardoned witness can still be compelled to testify.

"We are voting on whether a witness who has received the benefit of a sweeping federal pardon can be ordered by this committee to answer questions and then defy that order without consequence," Paul told the committee.

That pardon is central to the legal question hanging over the entire proceeding. Former President Joe Biden granted Fauci a preemptive pardon before leaving office in January 2025. The pardon covers federal prosecution, but it does not necessarily shield Fauci from a congressional contempt finding, which is a separate legal mechanism. Fauci's record of private contradictions on vaccine safety has only intensified calls from Republican lawmakers who want answers under oath.

Three states, Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida, are also separately investigating Fauci for potential criminal charges, according to the Washington Examiner. Biden's federal pardon would not apply to state-level proceedings.

Democrats and Fauci's lawyer call the vote a political stunt

The 8-5 vote split cleanly along party lines. Democrats on the committee opposed the resolution, and Fauci's legal team pushed back hard. His lawyer, David Schertler, called the vote "a crude political stunt intended to punish Dr. Fauci for exercising his constitutional rights," Breitbart reported.

Sen. Gary Peters, a Democrat on the panel, warned about the precedent. "If this committee now seeks to punish a witness for asserting their constitutionally protected Fifth Amendment rights, future witnesses will argue that appearing before Congress exposes them to punishment," Peters said.

But Republicans on the committee showed no hesitation. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida put it bluntly: "I've never voted to hold somebody in contempt. But if there's one person that should be held in contempt, it is Anthony Fauci," Fox News reported Scott saying. The broader question, whether Congress has built the institutional tools to compel answers from a witness like Fauci, remains unresolved.

Blanche and Pirro face the first real test of the referral

The decision now falls to Trump's own appointees. Blanche, confirmed as attorney general earlier this year, must weigh whether the contempt referral warrants prosecution, and whether Biden's preemptive pardon complicates or forecloses that path. Pirro, the U.S. attorney whose jurisdiction covers the District of Columbia, received the referral directly from Paul's committee.

Trump's Monday denial that he has discussed the matter with either official may be an effort to preserve the appearance of DOJ independence on a politically charged case. Or it may simply reflect the early stage of the review. Either way, the president's public posture leaves Blanche and Pirro to make the call without overt White House direction, at least for now.

The legal landscape is tangled. Fauci's Fifth Amendment invocations are constitutionally protected in a criminal proceeding, but the question of whether a pardoned witness can invoke the Fifth before Congress, when the pardon has already removed the threat of federal prosecution, is far less settled. Paul's referral is designed to force that question into a courtroom. Previously released declassified documents alleging Fauci lied under oath about COVID origins have added fuel to Republican demands for sworn testimony.

DOJ has said only that it is reviewing the referral. No timeline or criteria for that review have been disclosed. And the broader investigative thread, including allegations that the FBI blocked questioning of Fauci ally Peter Daszak, continues to unfold in parallel.

What remains clear is the political dynamic. Republicans believe Fauci owes the public answers about decisions that shaped the lives of every American during the pandemic, school closures, business shutdowns, vaccine mandates, gain-of-function research funding. Democrats believe the contempt vote is retaliation dressed up as oversight. And Fauci himself, shielded by a pardon and protected by his lawyers, has so far refused to say a word.

A man who spent years telling 330 million Americans what to do now won't answer a single question about how he did it. The Justice Department's review will determine whether that silence carries consequences, or whether the pardon Biden handed Fauci on the way out the door was the last word.