The lawyer representing COVID czar Dr. Anthony Fauci who had to be removed by security from Wednesday’s Senate hearing has a legacy of representing controversial figures.
The attorney, identified as attorney David Schertler, was escorted out of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee when insisted on speaking and sitting in an unauthorized area, despite repeated admonishments and warnings by Committee Chairman Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
Chairman Paul repeatedly told Schertler that he was not recognized to speak at the hearing, that he could not testify on Fauci’s behalf after the doctor invoked the Fifth Amendment because of the threat of self-incrimination. Paul also repeatedly told the attorney that he needed to sit in the row behind Fauci, instead of next to him.
“This is the way Anthony Fauci wants to be remembered, for a lawyer not listening to the rules,” Chairman Paul noted.
"You basically don’t call him unless you’re in deep s**t," a veteran D.C. attorney, who represents politically connected clients, told The Washington Free Beacon in September of 2023 when Schertler was hired to represent then-Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) in a high-profile criminal trial. As Free Beacon recalled, Schertler has a propensity to represent criminally-charged “elite” from criminal charges:
“Considered one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the country, David Schertler has represented all walks of elite life: an NFL player caught with a gun, military officials involved in shady lobbying, a high-profile murder suspect. Now, Schertler represents Menendez's campaign and his wife, the subjects of a multiyear Justice Department probe.”
Despite retaining Schertler as counsel, Menendez was convicted on 16 federal felony counts including bribery, extortion, obstruction of justice, and acting as a foreign agent for Egypt - and sentenced to 11 years in prison and permanently barred from holding public office in New Jersey.
When he was called to testify in Congress in 2025 regarding a potential cover-up of former President Joe Biden’s mental decline while in office, Biden’s White House Physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, also hired Schertler.
Like Fauci, Dr. O’Connor also refused to voluntarily appear before Congress and invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering any questions when he was compelled to appear.
In the days before the House Oversight Committee hearing, Schertler unsuccessfully tried to have the July 9, 2025 hearing cancelled, or at least postponed, on the basis of doctor-client confidentiality.
In his June 5, 2025 subpoena of O’Connor, House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) noted that issues of doctor-patient privilege “lack merit” because the American Medical Association’s code of ethics is not part of federal law.
Unlike Dr. O’Connor, Dr. Fauci enjoys a blanket pardon by President Biden for all potential crimes committed while in office – and he appears to need it, Rep. Comer told Fox News on Tuesday:
“We now know why President Biden gave a blanket pardon to Dr. Fauci. While obsessing about his own fame, Dr. Fauci wasn’t truthful with the American people about the origins of COVID and advised schools to be closed.”
Excerpts from Dr. Fauci’s diary released by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) on Saturday appear to show that the Fauci-promoted origin theory of COVID, that it came from a Wuhan, China wet market, was not true. Specifically, Paul cited an entry from January 26, 2020 in which Fauci admitted that the market was not the source of the virus.
