Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) released diary entries from Dr. Anthony Fauci, uncovered during his investigation into the former NIAID director.
While the earlier entries note Fauci’s “conversations, decisions, and his thoughts” about actions related to COVID-19, later entries reveal the former official’s obsession with what he perceived to be fame and glory.
A 2020 entry suggests a then-strong working relationship between himself and President Trump. “Anthony, you are really a famous guy,” he quotes Trump as saying. A separate entry says that Trump told First Lady Melania Trump that Fauci was “the smartest person in the world.”
Fauci’s rise in the public eye did not escape him in subsequent months. In May 2020, he 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 hyoperbole 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. POTUS seems to be enamored of me even though I am taking the spotlight away from him.”
Another entry reads, “WH press conference picked up by many outlets. Many print profiles and features on me. Ridiculous – too [numerous] to count!” Yet another entry states, “For better or worse, I am becoming an international celebrity. Calls from all over the world.”
After the pandemic and its associated mandates were well underway, Fauci detailed what he called an “unexpected briefing” by the CIA regarding Chinese studies. Fauci wrote in his 2021 entry: “The thing that blew me away about how naive and uninformed they are was the fact that they mentioned that they had word that in July of 2020 there was a super spreading event in China related to passage of virus in the laboratory.” He added, “Why would they suspect that a super spreading event that occur in the middle of a major outbreak in China was related to the passage of virus in the laboratory?” Fauci again noted that he was “stunned” by the “naivete” of the briefing.
“Also, in the matter in which she was asking me questions almost made me believe she was grilling me prompting me to say somewhat tongue in cheek whether I should have a lawyer with me,” he wrote. “I got on the phone with Beth [National Security Council official Beth Cameron] immediately after the briefing and she was very upset saying that she was going to check up the chain who and why this briefing was called and why there was no forwarding material to prepare us for what they were doing.”
Upon being confirmed as CIA Director in 2025, John Ratcliffe pledged to uncover the origins of COVID-19. Ratcliffe said at the time, “One of the things I’ve talked about a lot is addressing the threat from China on a number of fronts, and that goes back to why a million Americans died and why the Central Intelligence Agency has been sitting on the sidelines for five years in not making an assessment about the origins of COVID. That’s a day-one thing for me.”
A report on the matter was quickly released and indicated that the CIA believed a lab origin was the most likely explanation for COVID-19.
