On Wednesday, July 29th, 2026, former President Donald Trump stated that he respects President Joe Biden’s pardon of Dr. Anthony Fauci. Trump made the remarks in the Oval Office after Fauci, the retired health official, invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing focused on the COVID-19 pandemic response.

"The most powerful thing a president has, they say, is the power of pardon," Trump told reporters. "So he was pardoned by Biden and I respect that. I know how powerful it is. … They say it’s literally the most powerful thing a president has."

Biden issued the pardon for Fauci on his final day in office, covering potential federal offenses between January 2021 and July 2026. Fauci retired roughly two years prior after a 38-year tenure leading the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and serving as a chief medical adviser to Biden and a prominent figure during the Trump administration’s COVID response.

During the three-hour Senate hearing, Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment 111 times as Republican lawmakers criticized his role in the pandemic. Senate Homeland Security Committee Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky.) released thousands of pages of Fauci’s diary entries from 2019 through 2022, documenting the pandemic period.

Fauci responded to the hearing by saying, "The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars.’"

Trump also noted uncertainty about the pardon’s legal details, saying, "He probably didn’t sign this one. So, I can’t tell you what the law is."

Sources