Dr. Anthony Fauci on Friday declined a request to appear voluntarily before a second Senate panel after majority Republicans on the Homeland Security Committee voted along partisan lines last week to hold the longtime infectious disease expert in contempt.
In a pointed letter to Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, a lawyer for the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said any effort to compel him to appear before a Senate subcommittee, after a contentious July 29 hearing, would be to "impermissibly harass or degrade Dr. Fauci for political purposes.”
This is why we need to abandon this mentality that pleading the 5th is the same thing as admitting guilt. Not only is it fundamentally not the same thing, and explicitly distinct from it, but it’s also our first line of defense against abuses of power and politically targeted libel/smear campaigns such as this.
Well the main problem is using the justice system to prosecute political enemies. This led to abusing perjury laws, so now pleading the 5th is the prudent thing to do when you’re a political enemy of those in power.
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Always has been.