Senator Dr. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Saturday released much of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s diary on his webpage, “The Reading Room,” which the senator uses to display documents pertaining to the origins of COVID-19. The diary’s release comes just days before Dr. Fauci is set to appear Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which Senator Paul chairs.
Over 1,100 pages of the Fauci Dairy were released, covering the period from the beginning of COVID suspicion in December of 2019, to around three years later, December 2022. In a X.com post, Sen. Paul highlighted diary entries that suggest that the mainstream origin theory of COVID, that it came from a Wuhan, China wet market, was not true. Specifically, Paul cited an entry from January 26, 2020 in which Fauci admitted that the market was not the source of the virus:
“2/9 Jan. 26, 2020. Fauci writes in his diary: ‘now we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier.’”
“That is January of 2020. The wet market was already off the table in his own private notes.”
Sen. Paul also highlighted a February 1, 2020 entry in which Fauci admitted that only two of twelve scientists he had on a call that day believed that the virus was natural, and the rest believed it could have been man made:
“3/9 Feb. 1, 2020. The call that produced Proximal Origin. Twelve scientists.
“Only 2 concluded it was natural. Per Fauci’s own notes, ‘the rest felt that deliberate insertion was possible.’
“This was never a 50/50 room”
Paul was not the only one to comment on the diary. Independent reporters found inconsistencies between Fauci’s diary and the historical record. Matt Orfalea, an independent journalist on X, found an ABC interview Fauci did in late 2022, in which Fauci stated he had “nothing to do” with closing down schools. This conflicts with his March 15, 2020 diary entry, in which he reports that he had conversations with many officials on the subject:
“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.”
The diary also included many moments of Fauci reacting to all of the media attention and praise he had received. These include the reprinting of several articles, and retelling many moments of when he received praise from the president, the press, and many ordinary people. In a May 21, 2020 entry regarding one of these moments, Fauci boasts about his popularity:
“Big Front Page Article about 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.”
Republican Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida commented on that remark, reflecting on how the media’s fawning coverage and Fauci’s popularity affected Fauci’s response to the virus:
“Fauci was lionized by the legacy media, which made him the de facto Covid oracle. The More Fauci advocated for restrictions/lockdowns and the more he criticized states like FL and GA that spurned his edicts, the more the media would treat him as a saint.
“Fauci’s increasingly hysterical approach to Covid fueled this adulatory coverage—which in turn fueled his vanity. Vicious cycle.”
