Sen. Josh Hawley is pushing a new bill aimed at stopping federal officials from collecting cash awards after he accused Dr. Anthony Fauci of using government staff and resources to net over $1 million during the pandemic. The bill, called the No Cash Prizes for Bureaucrats Act, is presented as a fix to loopholes that let agency leaders benefit personally while on the public payroll.
On the Senate floor and in committee, Hawley laid out a simple case: public servants should not turn taxpayer time into a personal prize mill. He argued the existing rules were too porous and that stronger language is needed to prevent officials from soliciting or accepting cash payouts tied to their government work.
“No federal bureaucrat should accept cash prizes while on the job. That’s why I’m introducing legislation to bar federal employees from accepting cash prizes or soliciting awards. Fauci got rich while millions of people died. It can never happen again,” Hawley told Fox News Digital in a statement. Those words set the tone for his complaint that enforcement has not kept pace with opportunistic behavior.
At a recent hearing, Hawley pressed questions about awards and applications, accusing Fauci of channeling staff time toward prize nominations. “But I think I know why you’re doing it,” Hawley said of Fauci’s refusal to testify. “It’s because you don’t want to answer questions. It’s because you did all kinds of terrible things. It’s because during the pandemic, you got rich … while people were dying.”
“You were using federal employees with taxpayer money to apply for and solicit cash prizes for you personally, cash prizes totaling over $1 million,” Hawley said. “You did all of that during the pandemic, didn’t you?” Those direct lines drove the public accusations and framed the legislative response as a matter of basic ethics and accountability.
Fauci repeatedly declined to answer questions on the advice of counsel. “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.” That invocation complicated the hearing and intensified calls for clearer legal bars on officials seeking private reward while serving in government roles.
Hawley pointed to internal staff emails that, he said, showed agency employees being asked to help polish nominations for major prizes. “We’re working on this nomination for the Dan David Award for Fauci,” Hawley read from one message. “We need to beef up the COVID part.” Those excerpts are central to Hawley’s claim that official time and resources were redirected to benefit an individual.
The Dan David Prize became emblematic because a check tied to that award was reported at $900,000, but Hawley says the pattern went beyond a single prize. He alleges multiple nominations and applications were pursued on the taxpayer dime, naming several honors he says were sought with government assistance. The new bill would aim to close loopholes that allow such solicitations and to prohibit the acceptance of cash awards related to official duties.
Under the proposed law, federal employees would be blocked from receiving cash rewards tied to research, medicine, or any work conducted in an official capacity, and from asking subordinates to help secure those rewards. It would also tighten rules preventing agency leaders from using staff time to fill out applications or nominations for personal benefit. That approach is pitched as restoring clarity and preventing conflicts of interest that erode public trust.
Hawley framed his effort as a straightforward fix to a preventable problem: public service should not be a pathway to private windfalls. He criticized the broader culture that allowed senior officials to leverage government resources for personal gain and said the bill is meant to end that practice. “In fact, you turned your staff into a full-time application machine,” Hawley said. “You actually wrote to people and said, ‘Do you think maybe I’d qualify?'”
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