Former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci is set to testify before the Senate this week. Ahead of his appearance, Senator Rand Paul released Fauci’s diary entries from 2020 to 2022, totaling thousands of pages.
These diary entries reveal Fauci’s awareness of the media’s growing interest in him during the pandemic. In a March 22, 2020 entry, Fauci noted the media frenzy around his role and clarified his position on sticking to scientific data, contrasting with the president’s focus on hope for therapies.
“Press is going wild with me. Front page in Washington Post and Op Ed by Maureen Dowd in NY Times about me and my relationship with the POTUS. Profile by Peter Nicholas on me in The Atlantic. I am trying in several articles and on TV to clarify that the POTUS is talking about hope for therapies although there are no good data, while I must stick to the science and so fundamentally we are approaching this from different, but not conflicting standpoints,” wrote Fauci.
By May 21, 2020, Fauci was acutely aware of his heightened public profile and found some of the attention flattering.
“Big front page article about me appeared in the Washington Post. Very flattering. The situation with my national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable. It is not hyperbole to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable persons in the world,” he wrote.
Since retiring, Fauci has spoken about the negative impacts of the attention on him and his family. During a House appearance in 2024, he described threats his family faced, which led to arrests and the requirement for continuous Protective Services.
“There have been everything from harassments by emails, texts, letters of myself, my wife, my three daughters. There have been credible death threats, leading to the arrests of two individuals — and ‘credible death threats’ means someone who clearly was on their way to kill me, and it’s required my having Protective Services essentially all the time,” Fauci explained.
This week, Fauci will appear before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday.
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