Senate Republicans are set to vote on holding Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress after he declined to answer lawmakers’ questions during a fiery hearing last week.

Fauci, who has long been a target of the right since he served as a top health official during the Covid pandemic, repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right during the hearing, explaining in his opening remarks that he believed Republicans would have tried to use his testimony to prosecute him.

Now, Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee are escalating their push to do just that.

If the contempt of Congress resolution passes, the committee can refer it directly to the Justice Department or request that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., hold a full Senate vote.

If Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, chooses to try to prosecute the case, her office would need to secure an indictment from a grand jury in the district, where she has a mixed track record.

Committee Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., has argued that Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, could not invoke his Fifth Amendment rights because of his pre-emptive pardon from then-President Joe Biden.

“I ordered him to answer and warned him about contempt, yet he still refused,” Paul said in a Tuesday statement. “That is obstruction of a congressional investigation. The Committee will act accordingly.”

Republicans also argued in the contempt resolution that Fauci effectively “waived” his Fifth Amendment right by delivering “his opening testimony on subject matter pertinent to the questions under inquiry.”

Abbe Smith, a Georgetown Law professor, said Republicans’ claims about Fauci’s inability to plead the Fifth did not seem correct.

“There would have to be some sort of legal understanding about the nature of the pardon and whether it is limitless, and those pre-emptive pardons, those are unique,” she said. “I’m not sure anybody knows how much protection they provide.”

Smith said she, too, would have advised Fauci to assert the Fifth if had she been his defense counsel.

Smith said Republicans’ argument that Fauci’s opening statement meant he waived his Fifth Amendment right was “a little more interesting, but ultimately specious in my view,” because Fauci used his opening statement to point to his public service, belief in accountability and previous congressional testimony while explaining that “this is a bridge too far.”

“I don’t think that sort of an opening statement is a waiver,” she said. “It’s not like he was answering specific allegations and then shutting down questioning.”

Thursday’s vote is the latest salvo in Republicans’ campaign against Fauci, which has been building for years in the wake of anti-lockdown sentiment and fierce debate over the origins of the virus. Paul has targeted Fauci for years, clashing with the doctor in previous congressional hearings and repeatedly accusing him of lying, which Fauci has denied.

On Tuesday, Paul accused Fauci of committing felonies, alleging again that the doctor lied to Congress and destroyed records. Asked in an interview on MS NOW whether he believes Fauci should go to prison, Paul said it was “a good question.”

“Did he lie to Congress?” Paul asked. “I think he did lie to Congress, and I think to be fair, that people who lie to Congress should be charged with a felony, and if convicted, go to jail. There’s also the question of destroying records. That’s also a felony crime. So I think both destroying records and lying to Congress are serious crimes.”

Fauci and his lawyers have rejected Paul’s repeated claims, and in a statement last week, Fauci’s lawyer David Schertler said that Paul’s “public crusade against Dr. Fauci can only be described as an obsessive vendetta.”

During last week’s hearing, Republicans repeatedly attacked Fauci over his leadership during the pandemic. Democrats defended Fauci and criticized the premise of the hearing as a fishing expedition.

“Given Sen. Paul’s obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, 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, quote, ‘behind bars,’ unquote,” Fauci said.