For years, Anthony Fauci insisted he was simply a scientist offering advice. He didn't make policy, he said. He didn't shut down schools. He didn't close businesses. He certainly wasn't hiding anything from the American people.
Now we're getting a look at more than 1,100 pages of Fauci's own personal notes, released by Sen. Rand Paul ahead of Fauci's appearance before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. If these diaries are authentic and complete, they don't paint the picture Fauci has spent years trying to sell.
According to Paul, "During his time as NIAID Director, and particularly during the COVID pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci took meticulous notes about his work. He made note of conversations, decisions, and his thoughts about actions taken by politicians and other officials."
Those notes don't prove every criticism of Fauci was right. They don't settle every argument about COVID-19, either. But they do expose some uncomfortable contradictions between what Fauci privately wrote and what he later told the public.
The first one jumps off the page.
On Jan. 26, 2020, while most Americans were only beginning to hear about a mysterious virus in China, Fauci wrote:
It now appears using epi data and genomic data that the first infection was in early December and was not connected to the market. The infections spread among people weeks before the Chinese reported that they were dealing with a new infection and that gave the virus time to establish itself in multigenerational (sustained) spread. Remember, early on the Chinese were saying that there is no human to human transmission and all the original 27 cases were from the market. Now we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier. Having said that, somewhere the virus jumped from animals to humans.
Notice what he didn't write.
He didn't say the market might not have been the source. He didn't describe it as a working theory. He wrote, "Now we know the market was not the source."
That's significant because Americans spent the next two years watching anyone who questioned the wet-market narrative get dismissed, mocked or branded a conspiracy theorist. The lab-leak theory, meanwhile, was treated in many corners as something that wasn't even worthy of discussion.
No, this diary entry doesn't prove the virus escaped from a laboratory. It doesn't even mention the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
What it does show is that Fauci privately believed the seafood market wasn't where the outbreak began. If he believed that in January 2020, Americans have every right to ask why that wasn't communicated with the same confidence publicly.
The diaries also make it much harder to accept Fauci's repeated attempts to distance himself from the lockdowns that turned everyday life upside down.
Remember his 2023 interview with the New York Times Magazine?
"Show me a school that I shut down and show me a factory that I shut down. Never. I never did."
That's technically accurate. Fauci wasn't a governor or a mayor. He couldn't sign executive orders.
But that's also a pretty convenient way to describe what happened.
His own diary entry from March 15, 2020, tells a different story.
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... 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.
He added:
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.
Come on.
Nobody honestly believes the most influential public health official in America had no responsibility for the lockdowns because someone else physically signed the paperwork.
Governors made the decisions, but Fauci's recommendations carried enormous weight. His own words leave little doubt that elected officials were listening—and acting.
That's not a crime.
It's simply inconsistent with the picture Fauci later tried to paint of himself as a bystander who merely offered scientific observations while politicians independently charted their own course.
Another diary entry raises questions about transparency.
On Nov. 24, 2020, Fauci acknowledged that he had denied hearing from President-elect Joe Biden's team even though conversations had taken place.
He wrote:
Biden tweeted today that he has not spoken to me but his staff has and I have been 'very, very helpful'. I had told the press that I had not heard from the Biden team since my conversations with Ron Klain were supposed to be confidential since over the past several days Ron has contacted me about my advice for CDC Director and FDA Commissioner.
Everyone understands that confidential discussions sometimes need to remain private.
But that's not the same thing as giving reporters an answer that wasn't entirely true. Fauci's own notes acknowledge the difference.
Then there's perhaps the most human part of the diaries—and maybe the most revealing.
Fauci often claimed he was uncomfortable becoming a celebrity during the pandemic.
On March 28, 2020, he wrote:
The 'swag' around me is getting really ridiculous. You can [buy] Fauci T-shirts, mugs, donuts, sweat shirts, candles, pillows, etc. Geeeez!! I do not like this one bit.
That's easy enough to believe.
But two months later, the tone had changed.
On May 21, 2020, Fauci 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 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. I cannot even read all the things that are written about me since I am so busy... seriously.
There's nothing wrong with recognizing reality. Fauci had become one of the world's most recognizable public figures.
Still, it's hard to read those entries without concluding he was paying very close attention to his own image.
Ultimately, these diaries matter for one reason.
They help explain why public trust in America's public health institutions has cratered.
People can forgive mistakes. Science changes. New evidence emerges. Recommendations evolve.
What people struggle to forgive is feeling like they weren't getting the whole story.
When private notes appear more candid than public statements, confidence erodes. When officials seem eager to rewrite their own role after the fact, skepticism grows. And once that trust is lost, rebuilding it becomes incredibly difficult.
Anthony Fauci will undoubtedly defend his record when he appears before Congress. That's his right.
But Americans also have the right to compare what he says now with what he wrote then.
