Fauci Diary Entries Detail Private Lockdown Role and Media Contacts
Cover image from redstate.com, which was analyzed for this article
Newly released Fauci diary entries showed private claims of credit for COVID lockdowns despite public denials, prompting partisan reactions across outlets about transparency and media coverage.
PoliticalOS
Tuesday, July 28, 2026 — Politics
The released diary pages record Fauci describing direct conversations that preceded school and business closures in multiple jurisdictions while later stating he had no role in those decisions. The same pages show journalists sending supportive messages after public appearances. Whether these private notes constitute contradictions with sworn testimony or routine internal record-keeping remains the central unresolved question for congressional examination.
What outlets missed
The full 1,141-page release contains entries in which Fauci recorded negative private assessments of Donald Trump that were not quoted in any of the five reports. No outlet supplied the exact text of the 2014 gain-of-function pause guidance or the 2018 HHS framework that would allow readers to compare the EcoHealth project against the regulatory criteria in force at the time. The diary entries on media contacts do not record any instance in which a journalist altered a story at Fauci’s request; that distinction was not drawn in the coverage examined.
Newly released pages from Anthony Fauci’s diaries record conversations in which he described advising New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and California Governor Gavin Newsom’s chief of staff to close schools, bars, and restaurants in March 2020. The same entries note his support for a three-week shutdown in Los Angeles County later that year and his satisfaction that a 30-day extension of federal mitigation measures had been secured. Fauci stated publicly in 2022 and 2024 that he had not recommended locking anything down and had nothing to do with school closures. The diary pages also contain exchanges with journalists at CNN, NBC, and ABC in which the reporters expressed support after hearings or interviews. Senator Rand Paul released the 1,141 pages ahead of Fauci’s scheduled appearance before the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Separate diary notes from January 2020 record Fauci’s assessment that the Huanan market was an amplifier rather than the source of the outbreak. Outlets differed sharply on whether these private notes contradict Fauci’s later public statements and on the significance of the journalist contacts.
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