Anthony Fauci’s diaries take aim at News Corp journalist Sharri Markson’s ‘nonsense’ Covid-19 investigation

Fauci Diary Entries Critique Reporting by News Corp Journalist on Covid-19 Origins

Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, wrote in private diary entries that reporting by News Corp journalist Sharri Markson on the origins of Covid-19 did not make sense. The entries were released this week ahead of Fauci’s appearance at a Senate hearing.

Fauci, 85, was subpoenaed by Republican Senator Rand Paul to testify on his pandemic-era decisions. At the hearing, Fauci declined to answer certain questions and described Paul’s efforts as an “unheard campaign” seeking his imprisonment. Paul has long supported the possibility that the pandemic began with an incident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The released journal entries include Fauci’s comments on a May 2021 article in The Australian. Markson reported that Chinese military scientists had discussed the weaponisation of SARS coronaviruses five years earlier and had predicted biological weapons would be used in a future world war. Fauci wrote that the article “does not make any sense” and questioned why anyone would create an agent capable of infecting their own population. He added that he would follow up on the report.

Markson’s article was published to promote her book *What Really Happened in Wuhan*, which stated there was no scientific consensus on a natural origin for the virus and that Chinese authorities had concealed information. In another entry, Fauci referred to the book and to comments by molecular biologist Richard Ebright, writing that the same pattern of criticism from certain political quarters was continuing and describing the material as “a bunch of nonsense.”

Markson stated that the majority of the U.S. intelligence community now assesses a laboratory origin as likely. She also said her reporting had highlighted funding by Fauci’s agency for projects at the Wuhan institute routed through EcoHealth Alliance.

A 2023 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence summarised agency assessments on the origins question. The FBI assessed with moderate confidence that the pandemic most likely resulted from a laboratory-associated incident. Several other agencies assessed with low confidence that the virus had a natural origin. The Department of Energy assessed a laboratory origin with low confidence, while the National Intelligence Council and four other agencies assessed a natural origin with low confidence. The CIA and another agency remained undecided.

The article in The Australian drew on a document that Guardian Australia later described as based on a 2015 book available online that contained claims about biological warfare. China analysts, including James Palmer of Foreign Policy, criticised the story as containing elements associated with certain origin theories.

The two main hypotheses for the pandemic’s start remain a natural zoonotic spillover linked to wildlife trade and a laboratory incident involving research activities. No definitive evidence has resolved the question to date. News Corp was approached for comment.