Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s office released thousands of pages from Dr. Anthony Fauci’s personal diaries without fully redacting sensitive medical details of more than 20 individuals.
The records, obtained from Department of Health and Human Services servers after an extensive search, include Fauci’s notes on patients he encountered as longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
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Those notes name individuals and describe diagnoses, symptoms, and test results involving cancer, Ebola, and HIV cases.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said his team spent months locating the material across multiple government servers before turning it over to Paul and Sen. Ron Johnson for their ongoing investigations.
Paul’s office posted roughly 1,600 pages—covering pandemic-era entries from late 2019 through 2022 plus earlier career material—publicly in the days before Fauci’s July 29 appearance before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which Paul chairs.
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The initial dump left many personal medical details unredacted.
Files were later pulled and partially updated with some blackouts, though not all sensitive information was removed.
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One named individual, Leslie Adelman, whose Von Hippel-Lindau disease and related surgery appeared in an October 2020 entry describing a hospital visit by Fauci, called the release “unconstitutional and truly disappointing.”
She told reporters she was “pretty offended” that her name and health information were shared publicly.
Other affected people, including an Ebola survivor and family members of former Trump administration officials, expressed similar privacy worries; some children’s details were among those later redacted.
Privacy advocates questioned whether bulk disclosure of health data served any compelling oversight purpose.
The diaries themselves have become central to Republicans’ case that Fauci’s private reflections often diverged from his public messaging.
Early 2020 entries show scientists on a key conference call leaning toward the possibility of deliberate genetic insertion in the virus that causes COVID-19, with Fauci noting limited consensus for a purely natural origin at that moment.
Paul has repeatedly highlighted those passages as evidence that Fauci downplayed lab-leak concerns while publicly insisting the science pointed elsewhere.
Other notes capture Fauci’s awareness of his rising media profile, celebrity interactions, and internal tensions within the White House.
At last week’s nearly three-hour hearing, Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times, declining to answer questions on COVID origins, gain-of-function research, prior testimony, or even basic procedural matters.
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In an opening statement, the 85-year-old retired official accused Paul of an “unhinged obsession” aimed at seeing him “behind bars,” claiming the unredacted diary release was intended to embarrass and intimidate him.
Fauci said he had cooperated with Congress more than 200 times over decades but would not answer under current circumstances, citing Paul’s past calls for prosecution.
Paul rejected the Fifth Amendment claim, arguing that a prior presidential pardon removed criminal jeopardy for the relevant period and that Fauci had waived protection by making an opening statement.
The Kentucky Republican warned of repercussions for obstructing a congressional investigation and scheduled a committee vote on a contempt resolution, expected this week.
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He has long maintained that Fauci misled Congress about whether NIH-supported research in Wuhan involved gain-of-function work capable of enhancing pathogens and about the virus’s origins.
Paul’s prior remarks stretch back years.
In earlier hearings and interviews, he labeled certain Fauci statements on research funding as lies punishable by prison time, referred matters to the Justice Department, and argued the official prioritized narrative control over transparency.
After the diary release, he posted that the private record “completely undermines the official narrative” on origins and response measures, using the documents to renew demands for accountability.
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Fauci’s attorneys have dismissed the pursuit as a “pathological” vendetta and false accusations.
Democrats on the panel largely defended the former NIAID director’s service and criticized the hearing as theater.
The diaries remain posted, with partial redactions, on the committee’s reading room site.
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
