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Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Sunday that Dr. Anthony Fauci was legally entitled to invoke the Fifth Amendment during last week’s Senate hearing despite having received a presidential pardon, arguing that Congress can still obtain his testimony by first granting him immunity from prosecution.

Appearing on Newsmax’s “Sunday Agenda,” Dershowitz said Fauci’s attorneys handled the situation properly and gave him the advice any competent lawyer would have offered.

“I would have advised him exactly the way he was advised,” Dershowitz said. “He was still vulnerable for being prosecuted for anything that he did or said after the pardon came into effect. So he had years of exposure, and his lawyer gave him the right advice to take the Fifth, and his lawyer gave him the right advice to take the Fifth 111 times.”

Dershowitz also explained that a witness cannot choose to answer some questions on a particular subject while refusing others by invoking the Fifth Amendment midway through the testimony.

“You can’t take the Fifth once and then answer questions — turn the spigot on and turn the spigot off,” he said. “The Supreme Court has held over and over again that once you start answering questions on a subject, you can’t suddenly invoke the Fifth.”

Although he acknowledged that Fauci’s refusal to testify may have carried political consequences, Dershowitz maintained that the decision was legally sound.

“Any good lawyer — Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal — would have given him the same advice and would have told him that he’s going to come off looking terribly,” Dershowitz said.

Rather than attempting to pursue contempt proceedings against Fauci, Dershowitz argued that lawmakers should instead focus on obtaining the information they seek by removing any legal risk through immunity.

“Give him immunity,” Dershowitz said. “We should be more interested in getting at the truth and transparency than we should in pointing fingers of blame. So give him immunity and then he won’t have any Fifth Amendment right.”

He added that Congress possesses the authority to immunize Fauci from federal prosecution and could also attempt to extend those protections to state-level cases.

“If Congress wants the information, there’s a way of doing it,” Dershowitz said. “But I think they want the show as much as they want the information.”

Dershowitz also addressed Sen. Rand Paul’s attempt to limit questioning to the period covered by President Joe Biden’s pardon, suggesting that the argument for holding Fauci in contempt is stronger under those circumstances.

“That’s a stronger case for contempt when he refused to answer those questions,” Dershowitz said. “But under the Supreme Court’s decision, probably the courts will say that he had a Fifth Amendment right not to answer even those questions, lest he waive his rights as to other questions.”

Dershowitz concluded that Congress has a straightforward legal avenue if lawmakers genuinely want Fauci’s testimony rather than a political spectacle.

“Congress has a way of getting around it,” he said. “Just give him immunity. That’s the only way we are ever going to find out the full truth.”

The Shas party has declared that it will not join any future governing coalition unless a permanent arrangement protecting the status of bnei yeshivah is enacted, with party leaders insisting that temporary legislative fixes are no longer acceptable after the next election.

Speaking Sunday evening, Shas parliamentary faction chairman MK Yinon Azoulay outlined the party’s conditions for entering the next government, while also criticizing the judiciary and rejecting the possibility of partnering with certain opposition factions.

Azoulay began by addressing the collapse of the temporary legislation designed to halt the arrest of yeshivah students over the draft issue. He stressed that Shas has no intention of accepting another short-term compromise.

“We are stating this as clearly as possible: there will be no temporary, band-aid bill-period,” Azoulay declared in an interview with Radio Kol Chai. “We are not looking for temporary fixes. We intend to permanently regulate the status of Torah scholars once and for all, immediately following the elections.

“This is an absolute condition for any coalition we join. For anyone sitting and studying Torah, our duty is to ensure they can dedicate themselves to their studies without harassment. We will take the IDF’s needs into account as appropriate, but temporary workarounds are completely off the table for us.”

Azoulay added that Shas intends to begin the next Knesset term with lessons learned from previous legislative battles, including efforts to prevent the High Court from overturning future laws dealing with the draft issue.

“This time, we are entering the start of the term having learned from past mistakes. We will pass the override clause and all necessary legislation to prevent the Supreme Court from summarily striking down these laws. The public speaks at the ballot box, and it is our obligation to carry out their will rather than surrender to the courts.”

The Shas lawmaker also ruled out the possibility of cooperating with Gadi Eisenkot’s political faction, arguing that members of the party have repeatedly expressed hostility toward the chareidi community.

“How can anyone talk about allying with parties like Eisenkot’s when his slate includes Elazar Stern, who consistently speaks out harshly against the chareidi public? We’ve seen outrageous statements from him just recently.”

{Matzav.com}