‘I Got in Trouble and Pulled Off Air’: Ex-CBS News Journo Claims Outlet Punished Her for Questioning Fauci

Independent journalist Brittney Hopper claimed she was told not to question Dr. Anthony Fauci during her time working for CBS News, following Fauci’s fiery Senate hearing this week.

Hopper spoke to Australia’s News24 on Wednesday after Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times while being grilled about the Covid-19 pandemic by Republican senators.

Hoppe said:

I have so much to say because this was during the time when I was on CBS News, I was reporting extensively on COVID. 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. And I got in trouble and pulled off air for a couple of days because I started questioning him.

She said she hopes there is a “wake up call” for news organizations now that pandemic lockdown measures and more are more widely criticized.

Hopper said:

I hope that this is somewhat of a wake-up call for news organizations around the world. 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. 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. And I mean, look at his what he was saying today, pleading the Fifth… He couldn’t even answer what the color of his tie was. He said, I’m going to plead the Fifth.

Hopper claimed she apologized after being “pulled” off the air. Hopper left her position with CBS in 2022 after reporting for the network’s Los Angeles station.

“I apologized and I went back on air covering what I was supposed to do. As I’ve mentioned before on here, I was their puppet on mainstream media for so many years,” she said.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who chaired the hearing, set a vote next week to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress after Fauci refused to answer any of his questions.

Legal experts have given mixed reactions to whether such a vote would succeed, but Paul has insisted Fauci’s Fifth Amendment answers are “unsupported” due to his opening statement at the hearing.

CBS News is now under new leadership, with Bari Weiss taking over as editor-in-chief in 2025 following Paramount, parent company of CBS, and Skydance merging the same year.

Watch above via News24.

Jason Cohen contributed to this report. 

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