On July 28, 2026, a Republican-led Senate committee questioned Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading face of the U.S. government's COVID-19 response, over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the hearing, Fauci declined to answer by invoking his Fifth Amendment rights more than 100 times. The Fifth Amendment protects people from answering self-incriminating questions. In a November 2022 decision to appoint a court monitor to oversee the Trump family businesses during his civil fraud trial, a judge wrote (PDF Page 9) that Trump invoked "his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 400 times in response to questions posed to him during his deposition." Trump and his defense team did not appear to contest that statement.