Senate subcommittee obtains Fauci’s phone ahead of contempt vote | CNN Politics

A Senate subcommittee investigating Dr. Anthony Fauci has obtained a copy of his iPhone, a spokesperson for the panel’s chair, GOP Sen. Ron Johnson, told CNN on Wednesday. The Department of Health and Human Services provided the phone to Johnson’s panel, the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, ahead of a planned vote to hold the retired scientist in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify at a hearing last week. Johnson’s possession of a copy of the phone – which Fauci used during his time as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases – could boost congressional Republicans’ efforts to probe and potentially attack Fauci and his actions during the Covid-19 pandemic. “Hopefully, this device will address many of the questions he refused to answer at last week’s hearing,” Johnson wrote on social media Wednesday night. CNN has reached out to a spokesperson for Fauci for comment. Sen. Rand Paul – who chairs the full Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and has long clashed with Fauci – in June subpoenaed the 85-year-old former head of NIAID to appear before Congress. Last week, Fau