Anthony Fauci’s Fifth Amendment mockery demands the Senate’s contempt

America deserves answers about the feds and COVID, from the effort to determine the virus’ origin to public-health officials’ diktats on masking and lockdown — but got none of them from Wednesday’s Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing, because Dr. Anthony Fauci chose to take the Fifth for four hours, 111 times, never answering a single question even from the Democratic side.

Outrageous: The 5th Amendment grants a right not to incriminate yourself, yet Fauci is immune to criminal charges thanks to one of President Joe Biden’s blanket pardons; the only way he could’ve incriminated himself is morally.

All Fauci deigned to offer was an opening statement complaining of Sen. Rand Paul’s “obsession” with imprisoning him and whining that his “personal diary” had been released for public inspection.

Personal? He wrote the entries on a government computer while a government employee; the feds had every right to put the whole thing on the public record — especially since he has long refused to answer many questions, and many of the entries blatantly contradict his past sworn testimony.

The nation’s longtime infectious-diseases czar bore major responsibility for closing schools and businesses during the pandemic, forcing toddlers to wear masks and imposing dubious vaccine mandates on whole classes of Americans.

Does Fauci regret any of it, especially when he so confidently advised these moves despite a lack of compelling scientific evidence that such moves made any real sense?

Why exactly did he direct US taxpayer funds to Chinese “gain-of-function” experiments involving the creation of viruses targeted at humans?

Why did he lie repeatedly about those funding decisions and use his official powers to engineer a (phony) scientific consensus that the COVID virus developed naturally?

Above all, the question every management consultant and sports coach knows to ask after a major defeat: What can we do next time to make sure this doesn’t happen again?

“I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions,” was all Fauci had to say.

Chairman Paul will move to hold Fauci in contempt for his stonewalling, and rightly so.

As Sen. Josh Hawley noted to the tight-lipped doctor, “The Supreme Court has been clear for a century and more. Brown vs. Walker, 1896: ‘When he has been pardoned, he may not stand upon his privilege.’ ”

So the only thing that could land Fauci in legal trouble is if he commits some new crime now, such as lying under oath; maybe his lawyers advised him to take the Fifth because they don’t think he can stop himself from lying?

He took it into the theater of the absurd, refusing to answer even when asked the day of the week and the color of his tie: Completely unnecessary, because the Fifth Amendment can be invoked selectively — but Fauci wanted to flaunt his disregard for the senators who dared question Doctor Science himself.

Fauci made a complete mockery of the Fifth Amendment, just as his tyrannical pandemic policies ran roughshod over a host of other constitutional rights.

The Senate has a clear duty to hold him in contempt, and with all practical penalties that can entail.