The Damning Fauci Diaries

National Review Online

Tuesday, July 28, 2026

 

When Anthony Fauci appears before Senator Rand Paul and the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on Wednesday, expect fireworks.

 

According to Paul, “During his time as NIAID Director, and particularly during the COVID pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci took meticulous notes about his work. He made note of conversations, decisions, and his thoughts about actions taken by politicians and other officials.” This past weekend, Paul released a gargantuan 1,141 pages of Fauci’s notes. Very little in these pages enhances Fauci’s already deeply tarnished reputation.

 

Most notably, on January 26, 2020, Fauci wrote:

 

It now appears using epi data and genomic data that the first infection was in early December and was not connected to the market. The infections spread among people weeks before the Chinese reported that they were dealing with a new infection and that gave the virus time to establish itself in multigenerational (sustained) spread. Remember, early on the Chinese were saying that there is no human to human transmission and all the original 27 cases were from the market. Now we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier. Having said that, somewhere the virus jumped from animals to humans. [Emphasis added.]

 

America and the world spent most of the next two years in an increasingly furious debate over whether the virus emerged from the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, perhaps from a pangolin; or from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the separate institution of the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control (which was also doing research on coronaviruses found in bats); or somewhere else. Fauci apparently knew — notice he didn’t write “believe” or “theorize” — he could rule out the wet-market theory but never felt obligated to share that conclusion with the rest of us. Instead, he repeatedly dismissed and downplayed the lab-leak theory.

 

Fauci has insisted he’s not responsible for the far-reaching and strict lockdown policies that many states and localities enacted during the pandemic. “Show me a school that I shut down and show me a factory that I shut down. Never. I never did,” he told the New York Times magazine in 2023. And yet, here’s Fauci’s personal writing from March 15, 2020:

 

I spoke with Bill de Blasio (Mayor – NYC) and convinced him based on what I was saying publicly and my conversation tonight to close the NYC schools (he had already decided based on what I was saying on TV). I went on to tell him he should close the bars and restaurants in NYC. He said that he would base this on my recommendation.

 

I had a similar call with Ann O’Leary, the COS of Gov. Gavin Newsom of California. Ann said that based on my TV appearances today and yesterday, the Governor has decided to close the schools in California as well as the bars and restaurants.

 

Did Fauci himself give the order to close the schools? No, but Democratic lawmakers did so after listening to him. Fauci has been disingenuous in pretending that America’s lockdown policies just emerged out of nowhere, separate from his own beliefs and recommendations.

 

On November 24, 2020, Fauci made clear that he was willing to lie to the press in order to keep confidentiality:

 

Biden tweeted today that he has not spoken to me but his staff has and I have been “very, very helpful”. I had told the press that I had not heard from the Biden team since my conversations with Ron Klain were supposed to be confidential since over the past several days Ron has contacted me about my advice for CDC Director and FDA Commissioner.

 

Finally, Fauci’s personal notes reveal an unsurprising but still bothersome obsession with his own press coverage. By March 28, Fauci wrote, “The ‘swag’ around me is getting really ridiculous. You can [buy] Fauci T-shirts, mugs, donuts, sweat shirts, candles, pillows, etc. Geeeez!! I do not like this one bit.” Fauci may not have loved the swag, but he reveled in the attention.

 

On May 21, 2020, Fauci wrote:

 

Big front page article abut me appeared in the Washington Post. Very flattering. The situation with my national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable. It is not hyperbole to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable person in the world. Countless profiles on me in multiple media. I cannot even read all the things that are written about me since I am so busy . . . seriously.

 

Many medical experts, scientists, and public health officials have asked why public trust in them has declined so severely since the start of the Covid pandemic. More than any other American, Anthony Fauci reinforced the public’s suspicions about the honesty of public health officials — and we’re still paying the price for his duplicity.