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.”