Turns out Dr. Anthony Fauci kept a diary during COVID, and folks, it is an absolute page turner. Over 1,100 pages of personal journal entries were released Monday by Senator Rand Paul, and the revelations are hitting like a truck full of hand sanitizer. One juicy nugget has former Fox News anchor Chris Wallace catching serious heat, as first reported here.
According to the journals, Fauci documented a phone conversation with Wallace, who was hosting Fox News Sunday at the time before eventually jumping ship to CNN. Wallace apparently called Fauci seeking medical guidance about traveling to Oxford for a speaking gig. Normal enough, right? But then things got cozy. Fauci wrote that Wallace "empathized greatly" with the criticism he was receiving from what Fauci called "the far right" and that Wallace "fully understands what is going on." Conservatives who always suspected Wallace was the odd man out at Fox News are now doing victory laps so fast they might pull a hamstring.
But Wallace is honestly a footnote in this diary saga. The real show is Fauci's private commentary about then President Donald Trump. According to journal entries, Fauci described Trump as "rambling," "crazy," "desperate," and "a true embarrassment." So basically what half of Washington was probably whispering at happy hour, except Fauci wrote it down like a teenager with a LiveJournal.
And speaking of teenager energy, let's talk about the fame stuff. In one April 2020 entry, Fauci noted that the media was still obsessed with covering him. By a few weeks later, he was writing that his "national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable," and insisted that description was "not hyperbole." Sir, you were a government immunologist, not Beyonce. He even got invited to appear on Dancing with the Stars. Dancing. With. The. Stars. During a global pandemic. You cannot make this stuff up, which is fine because he literally wrote it all down for us.
Republican lawmakers, led by Paul, argue these journals raise serious concerns about where Fauci's head was while millions of Americans dealt with lockdowns, closed schools, and shuttered businesses. Critics say the entries paint a picture of someone increasingly captivated by his own celebrity while serving as the nation's top pandemic adviser.
The diaries are also expected to ramp up scrutiny over COVID origins. Reportedly, Fauci privately questioned parts of the Wuhan wet market explanation while publicly waving off the lab leak theory for a significant chunk of the pandemic. That contradiction alone should make for some spicy television when Fauci testifies before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee later this week, with Paul sitting in the chairman's seat.
The journals also reference private conversations with former NIH adviser David Morens after he became a target of congressional investigations, which Republicans say warrants further examination. Paul has long accused federal health officials of misleading Americans about pandemic policies, gain of function research, and how the virus originated.
Fauci retired from government in 2022 after nearly four decades running the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. This week's Senate appearance should be appointment television. Somebody grab the popcorn.
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