Tony's Diary Package — page 1

CHAIRMAN RAND PAUL, M.D. spar! 'Torys Diary 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. This is his own historical record containing almost-daily entries. Later in the pandemic, he gloried in the positive attention he was receiving from legacy media and demonized those who questioned his official narrative -- like me. Many entries in Fauci's daily historical account completely undermine the official narrative that Fauci and other public health officials espoused. The first alarm went straight to Fauci. On Jan. 31, Jeremy Farrar patched him into a call with Kristian Andersen; Eddie Holmes was already in the loop. They were not trading internet rumors. They were staring at the furin-cleavage site, discussing deliberate insertion and weighing whether the virus had escaped from a laboratory. Before most Americans knew there was an origins debate, the government's top infectious-disease official was already confronting the lab scenario. He didnt just join the process. He cet it in motion. After the Jan. 31 warning, Fauci proposed a larger expert group, called HHS officials, consulted Alex Azar and brought in Francis Collins. The government then split the work into two tracks: a security-side review through OSTP and the National Academies, and an international scientific track led by Fauci and Farrar. Fauci was not on the edge of the origins inquiry; he was helping design it from the first night. The Feb. 1 call was not a consensuc for nature. The call included Collins, Farrar, Vallance, Andersen, Holmes, Fouchier, Drosten, Garry and others. According to Fauci's own account, Fouchier and Drosten argued for a natural origin. "The rest" thought deliberate insertion was possible. With Shi Zhengli's coronavirus work hanging over the discussion, Fauci wrote: "We could not let this go." His diary describes a room divided over a lab scenario -- not a room that had ruled one out. Then the public story hardened. OnFeb. 6, the government's first formal review found no clear evidence of malfeasance -- but still said the issue needed investigation. By Apr. 17, Fauci was telling the country the virus was "totally consistent" with a natural species jump. By May, he was brushing aside a laboratory accident as a circular argument. The possibility that had triggered urgent calls, a security review and an international conference was suddenly presented to the public as barely worth entertaining. When questions returned, the fight moved fo messaging. In May 2021, Fauci wrote that HHS public-affairs officials resisted an NIH statement, proactive talking points and direct responses to congressional inquiries about Wuhan. His warning was blunt: if the government stayed quiet, it would look like "we're covering things up." That is exactly how deep the credibility problem had become. The fight was no longer confined to the science; it was now about what NIH would say and what answers Congress would receive. Fauci pushed back on the FAI¢ lab-leak case. On July 7, 2021, Fauci met with Beth Cameron and Maher Bitar, the NSC's senior director for intelligence programs, inside the EEOB SCIF. Fauci wrote that the FBI had "no idea what they're talking about" because it was convinced COVID originated in a laboratory leak. He then urged the NSC officials to work closely with Andersen, Holmes, Garry and Rambaut -- the same scientific circle at the center of the early origins calls. Fauci was not just listening to the intelligence debate; he was actively arguing against the FBI's position and directing officials toward the experts he trusted. Fouci''s defense came down to allies and definitions. After another conversation with Andersen, Fauci wrote that he felt "much better" knowing Andersen backed what he had been saying. Then late EcoHealth reports showed increased viral growth and sicker mice. Fauci acknowledged that some would call it gain-of-function, but held the line: it was not gain-offunction "by our definition." By then, the argument had narrowed from what actually happened in Wuhan to who got to define the terms. What he wrote privately... What he caid publicly... The scientists were staring at the furin-cleavage site and talking Fauci said the virus was "totally consistent" with an animal-toabout deliberate insertion. If the virus came from a lab, an human jump. Weeks later, he dismissed a natural virus escaping accidental release was considered the more likely scenario. from a lab as a "circular argument."