A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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March 5, 2007 - Went to great memorial for Art Buchwald at the Eisenhower Theater of the Kennedy Center at the invitation of Art's son Joel and his wife Tamara. Many VIPs there including Ethel Kennedy, Ben Bradlee, Tom Brokow, Dave Barry, and most important people in the media in DC and nationally. It was a warm and hilarious event filled with stories about Art and film clips of him
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March 6, 2007 - Busy day. Unfortunately, Scooter Libby was convicted today on 4 of 5 counts of lying to FBI and grand jury in association with the Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame CIA leak. Had House Appropriations Subcommittee Hearing today and it went well. Also, had a farewell dinner at Oceanaire in honor of Alex Azar who is stepping down as deputy Secretary at HHS. The old HHS crowd was there including former Secretary Tommy Thompson. Had a great conversation with him. He has put his name in as a candidate for Republican nominee for President. He is optimistic about winning the Iowa Caucus. He discussed with me the best plan that I have heard yet about how to handle the dreadful Iraq situation. Also, at the dinner were Janet Rehnquist, Stew Simonson, Scott Whitaker, Bruce Gellin, Lester Crawford (recently convicted for lying on his financial disclosure when he was FDA Acting Commissioner), Paula Staudard, and others. Very cold day in DC with temps in the teens.
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March 13, 2007 - Briefed Vice President Cheney today in his WH office on second floor. Beautiful "pre-Spring" day with temps around 50 and sunny skies. He wanted briefing on Pandemic flu and biodefense. I included a discussion about HIV/AIDS particularly the great success of PEPFAR since I wanted him to know that this Administration has done more than anyone in the world for Global AIDS. The briefing was as usual for the VP and me, i.e. very friendly and expressing multiple times how pleased he was to get briefed by me since he enjoys it so much. Also in the room were David Addington (Chief-of-Staff), Bruce Miller (Chief for Biodefense), Steve...? And Scott Deitchman.
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March 16, 2007 - Have been preparing for a briefing of the POTUS on pandemic flu preparedness. Interesting evolution of process. The HSC staff (Joel Bagnell and Rajeev Venkaaya) want us (HHS) to present a major discussion of "gaps" in stockpiling and others want us to just update the POTUS. Friendly tension going on. Today, we (me, Bill Raub, Bruce Gellin and Eric Hargan - Deputy Secretary) briefed the Deputies in EEOB 208 in preparation to brief the Principals and then the POTUS. Among them were junior staffers from WH as well as Rajeev, Joel Bagnell, Bruce Miller, Scott Deitchman, Jeff Runge. Continued disagreement about what the Secretary (MOL) will ultimately present to the POTUS.
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2007-03-19 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
March 19, 2007 - MOL, Bill Raub and I briefed the principals today in final preparation for the POTUS briefing. Present were Fran Townsend, Michael Chertoff, Joel Kaplan (now Deputy Chief-of-Staff to Josh Bolten), Joel Bagnell, Bruce Miller, other cabinet people. Briefing went better than on March 16. We are about ready to brief the POTUS.
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March 20, 2007 - Dinner at the Mellon Auditorium on Constitution Avenue, N.W. (13th Street) for Research! America. Usual DC Glitterati. At my table was Susan Dentzer (Newshour), Sam and Jan Donaldson, Tenley Albright, Paul Rogers. Awardees were Don Seldin, Joe Goldstein, Mike Brown, Mike Wallace, Sen. Orin Hatch among others. George Stephanopoulos was MC and I spent time catching up with him (knew him from Clinton White House days). Was a coldish night outside. Chris and Meg and Ali went off to California (Big Sur/Monterey) for Spring break. Wish I could have gone, but POTUS briefing tomorrow.
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March 21, 2007 - Briefing of POTUS today at 2:30 - 3:30 PM in Roosevelt Room on Pandemic Flu preparedness. Secretary Leavitt, Bill Raub and I briefed him. I did most of the formal briefing on state of the threat, vaccines, antivirals and diagnostics. Bill spoke on community mitigation strategy and the stockpile. MOL spoke on overall responsibility of the USG versus states. Present were the POTUS, VP, Karl Rove, Josh Bolten, Joel Kaplan, Dan Bartlett, Fran Townsend, Candi Wolff, Mike Chertoff, Paula Dobriansky (Undersecretary of State), several people from Joint Chiefs of Staff, Rajeev Venkayya, Joel Bagnell. Briefing went very well. POTUS was as usual very friendly and deferential to me. Was at times serious and at times jocular with his characteristic joking around. When he came into the room, he looked at me and said "Fauci, glad to see you Tony. I see we have the first team here today". It was the first day of Spring and it was unseasonably cold out and cloudy.
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March 29, 2007 - Very interesting day. First, Megan received notification that she is accepted at Columbia, Barnard, and Yale with waiting list at Harvard and Dartmouth. Her top choices are Columbia and Dartmouth and so she will wait to hear more from Dartmouth before making choice. Went to a reception given by National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) given at a private home in Georgetown (3032 - N Street, N.W.) in honor of Mayor Adrian Fenty. Got to meet him again and chat. Did not previously know this, but his mother is an Italian American. Ran into my old idol from Brooklyn - Ken Aspromonte (brother of Bobby Aspromonte also my idol from the old days), baseball great from Lafayette High School and Brooklyn sandlot baseball who then played in Major Leagues. He was born and raised in Bensonhurst like me and we shared some warm discussions. Beautiful Spring evening. After the reception went to Café Milano and had dinner with the NIAF Board of Trustees. Towards the end of the dinner, got up to go to men's room and ran into Franco Nuschese, owner of Café Milano (who has always been very warm towards me). He insisted on taking me into a private party in the restaurant that he was throwing for prominent blacks in DC and the nation. I immediately ran into Secretary of State Condi Rice and Colin Powell who were very warm and engaging with me. This was particularly true of Colin Powell who threw his arms around me and gave me a bear hug with a kiss on the cheek. Over the past couple of years, I have gotten to be friendlier and friendlier with Colin, having seen him at various functions such as Sam Donaldson's Christmas Party, etc. All in all, a good evening.
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April 17, 2007 - Scooter Libby contacted me and asked that I write a letter to Judge Reggie Walton via Scooter's lawyer William Jeffress to serve as a character reference for Scooter. Scooter has been found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson CIA leak (see above). He is appealing the 1 by case but may be sentenced to jail before his appeal is heard. The purpose of the letter is to try and keep Scooter out of jail during the appeal. I wrote him a very supportive letter.