Sen. Rand Paul Kicks Dr. Faucis Attorney Out Of Senate Hearing On COVID [OvZlKAv3xW5]
Sen. Rand Paul ordered Capitol Police to remove one of Dr. Anthony Fauci's attorneys from a Senate hearing room Wednesday, after the lawyer repeatedly tried to speak without being recognized. The confrontation started once Paul finished questioning Fauci, who had invoked his Fifth Amendment right throughout the hearing. Paul warned Fauci he would face "repercussions" for refusing to testify and scheduled an Aug. 5 committee vote on holding him in contempt of Congress. That was when attorney David Schertler, one of what Paul called Fauci's "half a dozen" lawyers, tried to argue the Constitution shielded his client. Paul refused to recognize him, warning he had been told to sit in a row behind the witness table, not beside Fauci, and that continuing to speak would lead to his removal. Schertler later told reporters, “[Fauci] has a valid Fifth Amendment privilege and he has the right to assert it. That's what I was trying to tell the committee, and that's all I was trying to tell the committee." Paul defended the removal, saying Schertler lost any standing to intervene once Fauci invoked the Fifth. Senate committee rules give a witness the right to have counsel present during testimony. But the chair can eject an attorney found to be disrupting the hearing. That call belongs to the chair alone, unless a majority of the committee overrules it. Removing counsel does not excuse the witness from testifying. Fauci's remaining attorneys stayed at the table for the rest of the hearing. Source: @politico @thehill @nbcnews