‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli pleads the Fifth at hearing, dodges questions

Martin Shkreli, the usually outspoken “Pharma Bro,” suddenly went silent when it was time to be grilled on Capitol Hill.

The 32-year-old former pharmaceutical executive repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to testify during a congressional hearing Thursday morning.

Shkreli, who gained notoriety for price-gouging HIV medication, grinned and squirmed uncomfortably as he declined to answer basic questions from lawmakers on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in Washington, D.C.

Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, the chairman of the committee, gave Shkreli the opportunity to provide an opening statement (which he declined), before asking about how his actions as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals would affect low-income individuals with HIV.

In September 2015, Shkreli became an overnight villain when news broke that he’d obtained the license for a decades-old lifesaving medication, Daraprim, and jacked up the price by 5,500 percent — from $13.50 to $750 a pill. He left Turing last December after his arrest for federal securities fraud.

“What do you say to that pregnant woman who might have AIDS, no income, she needs Daraprim in order to survive? What do you say to her when she has to make that choice?” Chaffetz asked.

“On the advice of counsel,” the former hedge fund manager replied, “I invoke my Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and respectfully decline to answer your question.”

With the same exact wording, Shkreli also declined to say whether he feels he did anything wrong or if his company did, in fact, put additional profits back into research as he had previously claimed.

To prove a point, Congressman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., asked Shkreli if he’d pronounced his name correctly.

“Yes, sir,” Shkreli replied.

“See there, you can answer some questions,” Gowdy said. “That one didn’t incriminate you. I just want to make sure you understand you are welcome to answer questions, and not all of your answers are going to subject you to incrimination. You understand that, don’t you?”

“I intend to follow the advice of my counsel — not yours,” Shkreli said.

Visibly frustrated, Gowdy lamented that Shkreli was keeping his mouth shut now, but had previously required no prodding to speak in interviews or share details of his life on social media.

When asked if he would even be willing to discuss more innocuous matters, such as his highly publicized purchase of the single-copy Wu-Tang Clan album "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin...," Shkreli declined, using the same rote response.

“Mr. Chairman, I am stunned that a conversation about an album he purchased could possibly subject him to incrimination,” Gowdy replied.

The lawmakers were clearly irritated that Shkreli refused to provide any information or context as to why Daraprim’s price skyrocketed into the stratosphere overnight.

Shkreli did not appear willingly. Congress had delivered him a subpoena, which he made light of on social media.

After leaving the building Thursday, Shkreli took to Twitter once again to lambaste the lawmakers and crack jokes about the outrage.