Fauci Can Plead the Fifth. His Journals Can’t | Opinion

U.S.NewsPoliticsAI PoliticsTechFact CheckSportsGlobalIran WarRussia-UkraineMiddle EastChina And AsiaLive BlogBetter PlanetAll World NewsLifestyleFamily & ParentingEntertainmentTravelPetsAutomotiveRelationshipsScienceHealthPersonal FinanceBetter WorkplacesReaders ChoiceOpinionMy TurnAll OpinionRankingsHealthCorporate ResponsibilityFinanceProductsEducationWorkAll RankingsWatchThe 1600The Royal ReportUnconventionalFrom The PaddockNewsmakersSocialFacebookInstagramYouTubeRedditTikTokTwitter/XExtraNewslettersDare to DreamEventsEssaysPodcastsVantageInsightsMagazineCEO CircleAnnouncementsLeadershipDev Pragad On July 29, 2026, Dr. Anthony Fauci sat before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times. Yet, from his own writing, the evidence is clear: Fauci’s poor leadership and pursuit of fame caused injury to Americans. For years, Fauci kept thousands of pages of notes and journal entries on a taxpayer-funded computer at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Chairman Rand Paul released them this summer after obtaining them from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Americans who lived through the lockdowns, school closures, mandates and years of public health edicts can now read Fauci’s own diaries and email exchanges for themselves to understand the harm he caused. On February 8, 2020, Fauci recorded a morning call with former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Tom Frieden. The two agreed that the new coronavirus was behaving like "a bad influenza" and that the true number of infections likely far exceeded the confirmed count. Which meant, by Fauci's own math, the fatality rate was likely "0.2-0.3 percent rather than 2.0 percent." That same day, Fauci appeared on FOX & Friends, WTOP Radio and MSNBC without mentioning that estimate. A month later, he told Congress the virus was "10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu"—far greater than the 0.2-0.3 percent estimate he privately admitted. The dissonance between his private and public disclosures would become a pattern as Fauci repeatedly twisted or misrepresented data to support his drastic mandates and prolong his newly acquired fame. On February 23, 2020, Fauci wrote that "children have very low rate of infection." Yet, within weeks, his journal records calls with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, whom Fauci said he "convinced" to close the city's schools before urging him to also shut down bars and restaurants. California Governor Gavin Newsom's chief of staff told Fauci that California would follow suit based on what Fauci said during his media appearances. This wasn’t isolated to preparedness, but also in the vaccine rollout. On January 25, 2021, then-surgeon general nominee Vivek Murthy texted Fauci and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky to ask whether vaccine timing mattered for pregnant women, to ensure it was safe in pregnancy. Fauci said there was "no data or theoretical reason" to vaccinate in one stage of pregnancy over another. Shortly after, unprompted, he expressed his own concerns with pregnant women getting the vaccine. The cytokine storm (an overreaction of the immune system) and high fever many people had after the second dose, he wrote, "theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the first trimester." Walensky called it "a good point." Nine days later, Fauci told an audience hosted by JAMA that there were "thus far no red flags" for vaccination, including in pregnant women. The women deciding what was safe for their unborn children were never told Fauci and other HHS officials had apprehensions, nor that the main study supporting vaccination in pregnant women barely studied first trimester vaccinations. Fauci continued to reassure pregnant women the vaccine was safe for them and their babies. By August 2022, another contradiction had become impossible to ignore. His journal describes his success getting CDC "pulled back" from language stating that the vaccines were not effective at preventing infection and transmission. An honest public statement, he wrote, “would conflict with" the success of the new bivalent booster campaign and "undermine the DOJ's efforts at mandates." Fauci’s own journal shows that officials understood the justification for vaccination had weakened. Yet Fauci didn’t just hide his private conclusions on the virus, but his private knowledge that NIAID had played an outsized role in the creation of the virus itself. On February 1, 2020, Fauci wrote that an NIAID grantee, Dr. Shi Zhengli in Wuhan, "has been working for years" on gain-of-function research to help coronavirus spike proteins bind to human ACE2 receptors. He was aware because NIAID knowingly funded this work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) through EcoHealth Alliance. Despite the Obama administration explicitly pausing federal funding for gain-of-function work on SARS and MERS viruses, NIAID funded this work anyway, even arrogantly setting their own safety standards so that EcoHealth could pursue the work. NIAID promptly ignored the president’s commands and their own safety standards; as a result, EcoHealth worked with WIV to create modified SARS viruses that were far deadlier than the parent strain and did not hand over this data until 2021. What did Fauci do as a response? Despite his private recollection and NIAID’s funding, he concluded in Nature’s foundational "The Proximal Origin of a Cover Up" paper that COVID-19 could not have come from a lab. He turned around and cited that paper to the public as settled science, neither disclosing his role in shaping the conclusion nor admitting his own suspicion that it could have been a lab leak. In May 2021, Fauci told Senator Rand Paul he was "entirely and completely incorrect" after being asked about the lab leak theory and NIH’s funding gain-of-function in Wuhan. Fauci was far more than an anonymous scientist sharing his recommendations; his influence shaped the global media coverage and impacted how the public responded to what they perceived was a highly lethal pandemic. His egomania and lackluster leadership contributed more to the devastation from COVID-19 than any other single public official in the United States. The Trump administration has started cleaning house at NIAID, moving the remaining biodefense work to the Department of War where it belongs. Those changes need to outlast any one administration. Congress should keep pressing until every official who hurt American public life during COVID-19 answers for it. Americans were told to trust Anthony Fauci. His own journal shows why that trust was misplaced. He can stay silent under oath. His record cannot. Governor Bobby Jindal is the former governor of Louisiana and serves as the chair of Healthy America at the America First Policy Institute. Hannah Anderson is director of Healthy America Policy and senior director of Policy at America First Policy Institute. She previously served as deputy chief of staff at the Department of Health and Human Services. The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.10Loading video…By Bobby Jindal and Hannah Anderson0ShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberSee more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.On July 29, 2026, Dr. Anthony Fauci sat before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times. Yet, from his own writing, the evidence is clear: Fauci’s poor leadership and pursuit of fame caused injury to Americans.

For years, Fauci kept thousands of pages of notes and journal entries on a taxpayer-funded computer at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Chairman Rand Paul released them this summer after obtaining them from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Americans who lived through the lockdowns, school closures, mandates and years of public health edicts can now read Fauci’s own diaries and email exchanges for themselves to understand the harm he caused.

On February 8, 2020, Fauci recorded a morning call with former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Tom Frieden. The two agreed that the new coronavirus was behaving like “a bad influenza” and that the true number of infections likely far exceeded the confirmed count. Which meant, by Fauci’s own math, the fatality rate was likely “0.2-0.3 percent rather than 2.0 percent.”

That same day, Fauci appeared on FOX & Friends, WTOP Radio and MSNBC without mentioning that estimate. A month later, he told Congress the virus was “10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu”—far greater than the 0.2-0.3 percent estimate he privately admitted.

The dissonance between his private and public disclosures would become a pattern as Fauci repeatedly twisted or misrepresented data to support his drastic mandates and prolong his newly acquired fame.

On February 23, 2020, Fauci wrote that “children have very low rate of infection.” Yet, within weeks, his journal records calls with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, whom Fauci said he “convinced” to close the city’s schools before urging him to also shut down bars and restaurants. California Governor Gavin Newsom’s chief of staff told Fauci that California would follow suit based on what Fauci said during his media appearances.

This wasn’t isolated to preparedness, but also in the vaccine rollout.

On January 25, 2021, then-surgeon general nominee Vivek Murthy texted Fauci and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky to ask whether vaccine timing mattered for pregnant women, to ensure it was safe in pregnancy. Fauci said there was “no data or theoretical reason” to vaccinate in one stage of pregnancy over another. Shortly after, unprompted, he expressed his own concerns with pregnant women getting the vaccine. The cytokine storm (an overreaction of the immune system) and high fever many people had after the second dose, he wrote, “theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the first trimester.” Walensky called it “a good point.”

Nine days later, Fauci told an audience hosted by JAMA that there were “thus far no red flags” for vaccination, including in pregnant women. The women deciding what was safe for their unborn children were never told Fauci and other HHS officials had apprehensions, nor that the main study supporting vaccination in pregnant women barely studied first trimester vaccinations. Fauci continued to reassure pregnant women the vaccine was safe for them and their babies.

By August 2022, another contradiction had become impossible to ignore. His journal describes his success getting CDC “pulled back” from language stating that the vaccines were not effective at preventing infection and transmission. An honest public statement, he wrote, “would conflict with” the success of the new bivalent booster campaign and “undermine the DOJ’s efforts at mandates.” Fauci’s own journal shows that officials understood the justification for vaccination had weakened.

Yet Fauci didn’t just hide his private conclusions on the virus, but his private knowledge that NIAID had played an outsized role in the creation of the virus itself.

On February 1, 2020, Fauci wrote that an NIAID grantee, Dr. Shi Zhengli in Wuhan, “has been working for years” on gain-of-function research to help coronavirus spike proteins bind to human ACE2 receptors. He was aware because NIAID knowingly funded this work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) through EcoHealth Alliance. Despite the Obama administration explicitly pausing federal funding for gain-of-function work on SARS and MERS viruses, NIAID funded this work anyway, even arrogantly setting their own safety standards so that EcoHealth could pursue the work. NIAID promptly ignored the president’s commands and their own safety standards; as a result, EcoHealth worked with WIV to create modified SARS viruses that were far deadlier than the parent strain and did not hand over this data until 2021.

What did Fauci do as a response? Despite his private recollection and NIAID’s funding, he concluded in Nature’s foundational “The Proximal Origin of a Cover Up” paper that COVID-19 could not have come from a lab. He turned around and cited that paper to the public as settled science, neither disclosing his role in shaping the conclusion nor admitting his own suspicion that it could have been a lab leak. In May 2021, Fauci told Senator Rand Paul he was “entirely and completely incorrect” after being asked about the lab leak theory and NIH’s funding gain-of-function in Wuhan.

Fauci was far more than an anonymous scientist sharing his recommendations; his influence shaped the global media coverage and impacted how the public responded to what they perceived was a highly lethal pandemic. His egomania and lackluster leadership contributed more to the devastation from COVID-19 than any other single public official in the United States.

The Trump administration has started cleaning house at NIAID, moving the remaining biodefense work to the Department of War where it belongs. Those changes need to outlast any one administration. Congress should keep pressing until every official who hurt American public life during COVID-19 answers for it.

Americans were told to trust Anthony Fauci.

His own journal shows why that trust was misplaced.

He can stay silent under oath. His record cannot.

Governor Bobby Jindal is the former governor of Louisiana and serves as the chair of Healthy America at the America First Policy Institute.

Hannah Anderson is director of Healthy America Policy and senior director of Policy at America First Policy Institute. She previously served as deputy chief of staff at the Department of Health and Human Services.

The views expressed in this article are the writers’ own.