Sen. Ron Johnson came to Anthony Fauci’s Senate hearing with receipts in hand, and one question that went straight to the heart of the government’s COVID-era treatment decisions.
Holding up a thick stack of studies, Johnson challenged Fauci over the claim that there had been no evidence supporting ivermectin. The Wisconsin Republican said the papers showed effectiveness in the 60 to 70 percent range and declared, “There’s all kind of evidence.”
Johnson then asked Fauci to what extent he had been involved in “sabotaging hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.”
Fauci did not answer the substance of the question. He invoked his Fifth Amendment rights.
That exchange came during a full committee hearing titled Testimony of Anthony Fauci, held Wednesday morning by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The official hearing notice listed Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as the sole witness.
The committee scheduled the session for 8:30 a.m. in Room SD-342 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Its official page identified Fauci by his former NIAID title and placed the disputed decisions before the full committee, not a subcommittee or informal forum.
The distinction here is important.
Johnson’s question accused Fauci of helping sabotage two early treatments, but the exchange itself does not prove that accusation. What the hearing does show is a senator confronting the former government’s most prominent COVID official with a stack of studies, putting the allegation directly to him, and receiving a Fifth Amendment invocation instead of an explanation.
Johnson has been pressing this issue for years.
In a 2021 letter to federal health officials, he and other lawmakers argued that agencies had ignored or discouraged discussion of early COVID treatments. The letter specifically asked why ivermectin had been prejudged while a National Institutes of Health trial was still underway and demanded records about how treatment guidance had been developed.
The lawmakers said treatment decisions had consequences for patients and physicians and sought the evidence federal officials used when discouraging certain therapies. Their questions covered both the scientific basis for the public posture and the decision process behind it.
That history is why Wednesday’s questioning carried more weight than a one-off hearing clash. Johnson was returning to a dispute he had raised in writing while the pandemic response was still unfolding: who evaluated the evidence, who shaped the public guidance, and whether officials gave potentially useful early-treatment research a fair hearing.
The scientific record also deserves accurate treatment.
A later Cochrane systematic review, updated in 2022, concluded that the included evidence showed no beneficial effect for outpatients and remained uncertain for hospitalized patients. That finding does not erase legitimate questions about how federal officials handled competing evidence in real time, but it does mean Johnson’s 60 to 70 percent figure should be understood as his characterization of the studies he displayed, not as a settled medical conclusion.
The accountability fight did not end when the hearing adjourned.
Hours later, Johnson announced that he had sent letters asking Fauci and former Food and Drug Administration officials to appear voluntarily for transcribed interviews. He said subpoenas would follow if they refused.
Here is Johnson’s same-day follow-up:
That next step matters because a hearing clip can expose the question, but documents and sworn interviews can establish the timeline.
If officials acted properly, they should be able to explain who reviewed the studies, what standards were applied, and why federal guidance took the shape it did. If internal communications tell a different story, Congress should make them public.
Americans lived through mandates, lockdowns, business closures, school disruptions, and relentless instructions to trust the experts. They are entitled to know whether those experts evaluated disfavored treatments honestly or allowed politics, institutional pressure, or bureaucratic self-protection to influence the response.
Johnson put the allegation on the record. Fauci chose the Fifth.
The subpoenas, interviews, and documents now have to provide the answers the hearing did not.
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[ H/T WLT Report ]
