There are some questions that should not take a lawyer to answer.
Sen. Joni Ernst put one of them directly to Dr. Anthony Fauci during Wednesday’s Senate hearing.
First, Ernst walked through a series of federally funded experiments involving tissue from aborted babies. Then she stripped away the speeches, the evasions, and the bureaucratic language.
She wanted one word from Fauci: yes or no.
Watch the exchange that is now spreading across social media:
This is just horrific… My God… they all need to pay dearly.
Dr. Fauci sowed the fingers and scalps of aborted babies into the backs of research mice, which the scalps grew fine baby hair.
— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) July 29, 2026
Ernst’s question was blunt: Did Fauci believe body parts from aborted babies should be put into mice for coronavirus research?
Fauci did not say yes.
He did not say no.
Instead, he replied: “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment.”
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee identifies Wednesday’s proceeding as a full committee hearing titled “Testimony of Anthony Fauci.” Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was the sole witness listed for the hearing.
Throughout the morning, he repeatedly invoked the constitutional protection against self-incrimination while senators questioned him about pandemic-era decisions, federal research funding, and statements he made to Congress.
The committee’s official recording captures Ernst asking the yes-or-no question near the end of her allotted time. It also captures Fauci’s complete response before the next senator took over: he asserted his Fifth Amendment rights and gave no answer to the substance of what she asked.
Ernst brought the hearing into a particularly dark corner of the federal research record.
She described experiments in which human fetal tissue was grafted onto laboratory animals, including fetal scalp tissue that later grew fine human hair.
Ernst posted her own reaction after the hearing:
How does Dr. Fauci sleep at night knowing his labs were using aborted baby body parts? Sickening.
— Joni Ernst (@SenJoniErnst) July 29, 2026
Here is the part that can be independently confirmed.
A 2020 Scientific Reports study described the creation of humanized mouse and rat models using fetal tissue obtained at 18 to 20 weeks of gestation. The stated goal was to build a laboratory platform with human skin and immune cells that could be used to study skin infections.
The researchers removed the animals’ skin over the rib cage and grafted full-thickness human fetal skin from the scalp and back into that space. They also processed fetal liver, thymus, and spleen tissue, then transplanted those materials to help build the humanized immune systems used in the study.
The published paper states that fine human hair became visible on the grafted scalp tissue after roughly 12 weeks. In a later test, researchers injected methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus into the human skin grafts to determine whether the model could support a human skin infection.
It also lists NIAID grant R21AI135412 among the sources of federal support. Fauci led NIAID at the time.
A critical distinction belongs on the record: there is no evidence that Fauci personally performed the grafting, handled fetal tissue, or sewed anything onto a mouse. The viral description goes beyond what the evidence establishes.
What the evidence does establish is disturbing enough without exaggeration: the institute Fauci ran helped fund research that used human fetal scalp and organ tissue from second-trimester terminations in laboratory animals.
The paper says the tissue was obtained through the University of Pittsburgh’s tissue bank after medically indicated or elective terminations, with written maternal consent and institutional review.
Those disclosures answer where the tissue came from. They do not settle the moral question Ernst put before Fauci.
And when she asked him that question under oath, he invoked the Fifth.
Invoking the Fifth does not amount to an admission of guilt. The amendment protects witnesses from being compelled to give testimony that could be used against them, and Americans do not surrender that right because a senator asks an explosive question on camera.
The Associated Press reported that Fauci said he feared his answers could expose him to a new investigation or a perjury allegation. Committee Chairman Rand Paul disputed that justification for conduct covered by former President Joe Biden’s preemptive pardon and announced a contempt vote for next week.
Fauci appeared under subpoena and declined to answer substantive questions across the hearing, including Ernst’s question about fetal-tissue research. Paul argued that the pardon removed Fauci’s risk of prosecution for the covered period, while Fauci’s attorneys maintained that answers could still create fresh legal exposure.
The report also described the sharp partisan divide inside the room. Republicans accused Fauci of evasion and deception, while Democrats portrayed the proceeding as political retaliation against a public-health official.
But Ernst was not asking Fauci to reconstruct a grant application or recall a technical date from years ago.
She asked what he believed.
Should body parts from aborted babies be placed into mice for coronavirus research?
That moral question now lands differently because federal policy has changed.
A January 2026 National Institutes of Health notice says NIH funds may no longer support research using human fetal tissue obtained from elective abortions. The policy took effect when the notice was published and replaced the agency’s previous requirements for fetal-tissue research.
The restriction covers NIH’s own intramural program as well as extramural grants, cooperative agreements, other transaction awards, and research-and-development contract proposals issued after the effective date. Currently funded organizations may redirect released funds toward work that remains allowable under the new rule.
The notice says fetal tissue from miscarriages and stillbirths may still be used under existing legal and consent requirements. It also states that NIH-supported fetal-tissue research had already fallen sharply, reaching 77 projects in fiscal year 2024.
In other words, the federal government now refuses to fund the very category of research at the center of Ernst’s question.
The study is public.
The grant number is public.
The images of human hair growing from grafted fetal scalp tissue are public.
And now Fauci’s refusal to answer one simple yes-or-no question is public too.
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.
