Fauci Diary Entries Detail Private Lockdown Role and Media Contacts

Newly released pages from Anthony Fauci's private diaries show the longtime government health official taking personal credit for persuading local leaders to shut down schools and businesses during the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak. The entries, made public by Sen. Rand Paul, stand in contrast to Fauci's repeated public statements that he never advocated for lockdowns.

In a March 15, 2020 diary note marked "BIG DAY!" in red, Fauci described calling New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and convincing him to close schools based on his television appearances. He recorded a similar conversation with the chief of staff to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, noting that the governor acted after hearing Fauci on TV. These private accounts emerged as part of a larger release of more than 1,100 pages of Fauci's notes, emails, and related messages ahead of his scheduled testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

The diaries also show Fauci tracking media attention closely. Entries detail praise from CNN anchors including Jake Tapper, Dana Bash, and Wolf Blitzer, as well as former Meet the Press host Chuck Todd and ABC's George Stephanopoulos. The notes record text messages and calls in which journalists expressed admiration for his public role, even as questions mounted about the origins of the virus and the effects of the policies he influenced.

Additional records released alongside the diaries include communications tied to the "Proximal Origin" paper. Fauci had privately noted in late January 2020 that early data pointed away from the Wuhan seafood market as the source and suggested the virus had spread among people for weeks before official Chinese reports. That assessment aligned with later questions about whether the outbreak began in a laboratory setting at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where U.S.-funded research on bat coronaviruses had taken place.

Fauci has maintained under oath that the National Institutes of Health never funded gain-of-function work at the Wuhan lab. Documents show grant money flowing through EcoHealth Alliance to the institute, with some papers acknowledging the support. A temporary halt on such experiments was later lifted. The new material does not resolve those funding questions but adds to the record of internal discussions that differed from public messaging.

The release comes as congressional Republicans continue to examine pandemic-era decisions and the coordination between federal agencies and outside researchers. Fauci is expected to face questions on the contradictions between his notes and earlier testimony when he appears before the committee.