Ex-CBS News Reporter Claims She Was 'Pulled Off Air' After Questioning Dr. Anthony Fauci During COVID-19 Pandemic: 'I Got in Trouble'

Ex-CBS News reporter Britney Hopper claimed she faced disciplinary action after pressing Dr. Anthony Fauci with tough questions at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I was out there on the front lines. And I remember after a couple of years of dealing with hearing this man and interviewing this man and having to wear masks and having our kids out of school for years, I remember questioning what he was doing," the journalist recalled in an interview with a news outlet on Thursday, July 31. "And I got in trouble and pulled off air for a couple of days because I started questioning him."

Hopper, who previously worked for CBS News Los Angeles until 2022, spoke out as Fauci, 85, made headlines for invoking the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times during a Republican-led Senate hearing regarding the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this week.

"You weren't supposed to question the agenda and the narrative at that point. And I apologized, and I went back on air covering what I was supposed to do as I've mentioned before on here," Hopper continued. "I was their puppet on mainstream media for so many years. Hopefully, more and more people are waking up to, you know, really, the lack of journalistic integrity that we're seeing."

Though the journalist wasn't shocked by Fauci's lack of responses during the Senate hearing, she hoped the "insanity" of his refusal to answer questions would be a "wake-up call" to his lack of knowledge during the health crisis.

"The six feet apart thing that he made up, wearing masks outside with not a single soul around us, you know, there were so many questions that were left unanswered and … let me give him the benefit of the doubt," she explained. "That first year, many of us — we had no idea what was going on, but then when we started to learn more and more and started to really use journalistic integrity, which maybe that’s just been thrown out the window … news agencies jumped on the bandwagon with him and just feared so many Americans."

As OK! previously reported, the Senate committee, led by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), questioned the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) over his response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the disease's origins.

Fauci stepped down from the agency in December 2022 after nearly four decades of service.

Paul had publicly backed the theory that the virus originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, rather than the belief that it was transmitted from animals to humans.

Fauci has stood by his actions during the crisis, while Paul has accused the longtime health official of lying, according to CBS News.

Following the four-hour Senate hearing on Wednesday, July 29, Paul told reporters that he believed Fauci's lack of answers could warrant federal charges for contempt or obstructing a congressional proceeding.

"I think there is a very real chance that he could be prosecuted for that," Paul told the outlet after the hearing.