Fauci Testifies on COVID Origins Amid Diary Release

Public trust in federal health leadership faces renewed tests as former NIAID director Anthony Fauci appears under subpoena before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The session, led by Sen. Rand Paul, centers on whether early pandemic decisions and research funding aligned with what officials knew privately. More than 1,100 pages of Fauci’s diary entries, released by Paul’s office days before the hearing, record his contemporaneous notes on virus origins, media attention, and interactions with the Trump and Biden administrations.

Fauci, 85, advised seven presidents across HIV, Ebola, and the 2001 anthrax attacks before becoming the public face of the COVID-19 response. Paul has long questioned whether NIH grants to EcoHealth Alliance supported gain-of-function work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and whether Fauci downplayed a possible lab incident. Diary passages from early 2020 show Fauci noting uncertainty among scientists on the virus’s source and recording that the Wuhan market “was not the source, it was the amplifier.” Later entries describe his growing frustration with Trump’s messaging and his own rising profile, including references to flattering profiles and celebrity encounters.

Fauci’s legal team called the inquiry a “groundless vendetta” and rejected claims of deception. More than 150 infectious-disease experts signed a letter urging Congress to end what they termed harassment. House Oversight Chairman James Comer stated that Biden’s preemptive pardon does not shield Fauci from perjury during testimony. Democrats on the committee have questioned the process, noting closed-door interviews limited to Republicans. The hearing follows divided intelligence assessments: the Department of Energy and FBI assessed a lab origin as likely with varying confidence, while other agencies leaned toward natural spillover. No single agency reached a definitive conclusion.