Rand Paul releases 1,500 pages of Fauci’s personal COVID diary

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, has released more than 1,500 pages of personal diary entries from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The diary, stored on government servers, was obtained by subpoena and turned over by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as part of Paul's investigation into the origins of COVID-19.

The entries span 2001 to 2015 and January 2020 through December 2022, covering Fauci's private views on the virus's origins, his relationship with President Donald Trump, school closures during the pandemic and his own public celebrity. During a July 29 Senate hearing, Fauci repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

In the diary, Fauci wrote in 2021 that it was "molecularly impossible" that U.S. funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology created the virus, and he described accusations against him as tied to Trump's false claims about the 2020 election. Other entries detail his conversations with officials including former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over decisions to close or reopen schools during the pandemic.

Read the full story at USA Today.