A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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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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2007-04-17 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
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.
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April 18, 2007 - Testified before the House Committee on Homeland Security together with Gerry Parker, Jesse Goodman (FDA) and Jeff Runge (DHS) on the successes and failures of Bioshield. Committee chaired by Jim Langevin. Hearing called because several of the companies that were trying for Bioshield procurement contracts had failed, i.e. Vaxgen for rPA and Hollois Eden for Neumune (to protect and regenerate BM after radiation). Richard Hollis testified against the USG and Dr. Davis from HGS (that makes AbThrax - monoclonal antibody against anthrax toxin) testified favorably towards the USG. Hollis looked like a whiner and the Hearing went fine. It is clear that Bennie Thompson, the overall Chair is in the pocket of the lobbyists as his questions reflected a "presumption" of failure on the part of DHHS and BioShield.
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April 20, 2007 - Briefed Joel Bagnell and Rajeev Venkayya at the WH on the rolling out of justification for classified research. Some friendly tension between Joel and me in that they wanted us (CDC, FDA, HHS, NIH to sign off on the roll-out document and there was a phrase in there that did not clarify that we do not do classified research. It asked us to justify with all of our research why it should be unclassified making the default position that everything should be classified. I had them change it to read that we should explain why it is not classified as opposed to justifying it as being unclassified. We came to an agreement.
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April 24, 2007 - Had lunch with Scooter Libby today at the Daily Grill in the Bethesda Hyatt. Hot muggy and sunny day. Has been cold up until now. Scooter looked very worn and down. I gave him a big hug and he looked like he was going to have tears. I asked about the trial and he said that they really expected a not guilty verdict and that is why they did not pull out all of the stops and ask the VP to testify. Also, it was clear that Reggie Walton was "preening" for this since he had the courtroom wired for the press and bloggers which they never do. He proclaimed complete innocence and is hoping that Bush will pardon him. He is sad that he has not been pardoned already and feels that perhaps if it looks like he will go to jail the POTUS will then pardon him. He feels that there are politicos in the WH who do not want the POTUS to pardon him since it will make the Administration look even worse that the 30% approval ratings. I told Scooter that I could not imagine that the POTUS will allow him to go to jail, particularly with the VP pulling so hard for Scooter. I spent the rest of the time briefing Scooter about biodefense updates. Also, had meeting at the White House called by Rajeev Venkayya and Mike Magan on XDR-TB including reps from CDC (Julie G. and Ken Castro), HHS (Craig Vanderwagen, Gerry Parker) DoD, DHS, State, USAID, Mark Dybul. Bottom line was to coordinate the multi-Agency efforts. Good meeting. We (NIAID) has already put together a strategic plan as has CDC and so HHS looked good. Mark Dybul mentioned that the Policy Time with the POTUS on PEPFAR funding did not go well today.
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April 25, 2007 - Had a lunch/reception at the White House followed by a presentation by Laura Bush and President Bush in the Rose Garden to celebrate the first ever Malaria Awareness Day in the USA. Day was sunny, hot and muggy. I was given a reserved seat in the second row. Had major and important conversations during the reception with Randy Tobias, Mike Gerson and Josh Bolten. Apparently, at a meeting with the POTUS yesterday on PEPFAR funding, there was some opposition to maintaining the funding level. Likely the major mover of this restricted funding was Karl Rove. Condi Rice is out of the country, but will be supportive of expanded funding. Josh Bolten is supportive also. Josh asked me what I thought and I came on strong. Josh pointed out that this was supposed to be a $15 billion program with $3 billion per year for 5 years. Josh said that at the time that I developed the program, I said that we could not absorb the entire $3 billion in the first years and so we would do more in the later years. Now the program is at $5 billion per year, which means that just to sustain it without increases would cost $5 billion per year for 5 years or $25 billion. Many conservatives would oppose this as a bottomless pit. I also argued that we should get rid of the mandated 33% for abstinence of the 20% prevention money. I am attaching an e-mail that I sent to Josh after getting back to my office in which I clarify my position: Josh: It was good to see you at the Malaria event today and I appreciate your listening to Randy, Mike and me. I know that you are very much supportive of the full funding and even increase of the initiative and I know that this view is not shared by all. However, just to reiterate what I said to you and what you already know, this is one of the most important things that this administration has done and is doing. The people of Africa look upon us with great admiration and gratitude because of PEPFAR. We just cannot let it slip. True, we cannot commit to treating every infected person in the target countries, particularly since there are 4.3 million new infections worldwide each year, mostly in developing countries. However, we are making significant progress in prevention. I know that you are aware of how impressive the circumcision data are. In addition, although we are still years away from a vaccine, the most recent candidate has entered a phase 2 trial internationally (including Africa). Even if it does not totally prevent HIVinfection, there is a reasonable chance that it will slow the progression of disease if people do get infected, and this will result in lower levels of virus in their bodies, which in turn makes transmission to others less likely. I tell you this because I believe that we are on the cusp of a slowing down of transmission, which would dampen the possibility of a "bottomless pit" of infection in target countries for which we would feel obligated to treat. Finally, with regard to prevention, I am sorry that I was at first not clear about my position on abstinence being mandated as one third of the 20% prevention piece of the pie. We get enormous bad press (that often overshadows the enormous good that we are doing) because we mandate a specific number for abstinence. The faith-based organizations are going to push abstinence with the prevention money that we give them anyway. Therefore, abstinence will indeed be pursued through PEPFAR. By mandating it, those who do not think that this is the way to go will only drop out of the funding stream and declare the program dysfunctional when it really is a breath-taking success. On balance, it is my opinion that if we remove mandated categories of prevention, abstinence programs will still go on in Africa and PEPFAR will be praised by everyone, deservedly so. I am sorry if I came on somewhat strong at the White House with you, but I feel deeply that PEPFAR is such an historically great program (that would not exist if it were not for you) and I want it to function optimally. As always, if you need me to pitch in on this and articulate my views to anyone, please call upon me. I would jump at the chance. Thank you and best personal regards, Tony During the Rose garden ceremony, the POTUS actually got up and played the drums with a troop of Senegalese/American dancers who provided entertainment on the stage in the Rose Garden. As he left the stage and went back to the Oval Office, we caught each other's eyes and he said "Hi Denny", walked a few steps, turned around, came back and said "What am I talking about, Hi Tony"; he laughed and went on.