Before the COVID-19 pandemic upended American life, Dr. Anthony Fauci occupied a very different place in Washington: widely respected, largely nonpartisan and familiar mostly to the political and scientific worlds. As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, he had served under seven presidents and built a reputation as one of the federal government’s most trusted public health officials.
Across nearly five decades in government, Fauci won praise from Democrats and Republicans alike for his role in confronting HIV/AIDS, Ebola, SARS and other infectious disease threats. Presidents knew his name — George W. Bush presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and Barack Obama publicly commended his work — but outside policy circles, Fauci remained far from a household figure.
That changed abruptly in January 2020, when a “novel virus” was identified inside the United States. Almost overnight, Fauci went from a respected but little-known infectious disease specialist to one of the most recognizable faces in the world, appearing regularly as a central voice in the federal COVID-19 response.
“The public adulation of me has been amazing with every young intern as well as seasoned veteran in the [White House] coming over to me congratulating me and thanking me for my work and even asking for selfies,” Fauci wrote in a personal diary entry in March 2020.
That passage is among more than 1,100 pages Fauci reportedly wrote on U.S. government servers while serving as a leading member of President Donald Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force during the early months of the pandemic.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Monday that he provided the material to Senator Rand Paul, who released it over the weekend. The documents are expected to play a central role in what could become contentious Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearings, chaired by Paul, on Wednesday.
By September 2020, Paul, a physician by training, had emerged as one of Fauci’s most persistent critics. He repeatedly questioned Fauci’s positions on vaccine and mask mandates, social distancing guidance, lockdown measures and proposals to close schools during the COVID-19 crisis.
But their sharpest battles centered on the origins of COVID-19: whether the virus arose naturally from wet markets in Wuhan, China, or whether it stemmed from a laboratory experiment that went disastrously wrong.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Dr Anthony Fauci was one of Washington’s most admired public servants, working under seven presidents as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
As early as September 2020, Paul, a trained medical doctor, established himself as Fauci’s chief antagonist
Paul argued evidence showed the National Institutes of Health, run by Fauci’s boss Dr Francis Collins and with Fauci’s knowledge, funded risky ‘gain-of-function’ research in China that potentially created the disease.
‘We’re saying they are gain-of-function viruses, because they were animal viruses that became more transmissible in humans and you funded it. And you won’t admit the truth,’ Paul told Fauci in a furious July 2021 hearing.
Fauci: ‘You are implying that what we did was responsible for the deaths of individuals… I totally resent that.’
Paul: ‘It could have been. It could have been.’
Fauci: ‘If anybody is lying here, senator it is you.’
The diary only adds more fuel to this raging dispute.
On January 26, 2020, Fauci wrote: ‘Now we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier… Having said that, somewhere the virus jumped from animals to humans.’
Days later, Fauci noted that scientists called him to say they believed the virus was ‘either accidentally released or deliberately released by a crazy person in the lab, the former being the most likely.’
Expect that to be a flashpoint on Wednesday.
Yet, the diary itself has generated surprisingly little curiosity in establishment quarters, despite its revealing portrait of one of the most influential public officials of the modern era.
Fauci’s old guard media defenders are already preparing their defense. CNN’s Brian Stelter laughably wrote: ‘While MAGA media ridicules Fauci’s ‘obsession’ with fame, the diary entries read more like someone documenting the objectively wild speed at which a government immunologist became internationally famous.’ Stelter, meanwhile, neglected to chronicle the chummy on- and off-air relationship between Fauci and his CNN colleague, Jake Tapper.
The fact that Fauci is no longer in the government may explain the lack of mainstream media coverage. Perhaps there is scant interest because of President Joe Biden’s preemptive pardon of Fauci in the closing days of his presidency largely extinguished the possibility of any criminal prosecution for perjury. More likely to me, it is because the press and popular culture seem to like Fauci more than they like Trump – and because Fauci served as a foil to Trump in the President’s first term.
Late-night hosts competed to book him. The Washington Nationals invited him to throw out the first pitch at Major League baseball’s opening day. Brad Pitt portrayed him admiringly on Saturday Night Live, while Matthew McConaughey told him: ‘Not all heroes wear capes. You are a shining example of that.’
Fauci’s likeness appeared on candles, T-shirts, bobbleheads and coffee mugs. Television anchors thanked him for his service before every interview, not a standard professional greeting. One interviewer called him ‘the coolest man on the planet.’ Another described him as ‘a godsend.’
Prior to COVID, Fauci was known to presidents (George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Barack Obama lauded him) but not the public
Perhaps there is scant interest because of President Joe Biden’s preemptive pardon of Fauci in the closing days of his presidency largely extinguished the possibility of any criminal prosecution for perjury
Here’s the thought experiment I can’t shake. Imagine if White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller, not Anthony Fauci, had kept a White House diary filled with giddy entries about television bookings and celebrity admirers, all while serving at Trump’s right hand through national crises.
Does anyone honestly believe the coverage would be, ‘Nothing to see here?’ Every honest editor in America knows that every front page and cable TV panel would be busy diagnosing the breathtaking narcissism. There would be endless thought pieces about vanity, ego and the corrupting effects of fame.
What makes the newly released diary notable is not that famous people admired Fauci. It’s that Fauci himself seems so captivated by their regard. The diaries do not present as the historic record of a public servant trying to navigate a once-in-a-century emergency. Instead, they read as a rapturous catalog of his personal fame, on celebrity encounters, media invitations (Jonathan Karl’s book party and private dinners with Jake Tapper and his wife) and frustrations about not appearing on television often enough.
Even on days when thousands of American citizens died of the disease, Fauci’s entries centered on his private brand success.
Perhaps there is scant interest because the press and popular culture seem to like Fauci more than they like Trump – and because Fauci served as a foil to Trump in the President’s first term
Mark Halperin is the editor-in-chief and host of the interactive live video platform 2WAY and the host of the video podcast ‘Next Up’ on the Megyn Kelly Network
None of it, to Fauci’s defenders, yet proves misconduct. The entries do, however, reveal something ignominious and timeless about Washington.
Fame is an intoxicant. Very few people prove immune to it, particularly those who spend decades laboring in obscurity before suddenly finding themselves treated like rock stars.
Wednesday’s hearing will likely hinge on what much of the press will say about it afterward.
To many Democrats, Fauci remains exactly what he has been for decades: an American hero who devoted his life to public service, guided the country through an unprecedented catastrophe and became the target of relentless attacks for simply following the science.
Many Republicans see an almost perfectly inverted picture: an unelected bureaucrat who accumulated extraordinary influence, made flawed decisions, resisted accountability and became the embodiment of an establishment unwilling to admit mistakes.
The hearing won’t settle the lab-leak debate, rewrite the history of lockdowns or change many minds, but it may remind us of something else: how deeply the COVID pandemic divided the nation and how desperately we are still in need of healing.
