While billions around the world suffered in sickness, isolation, and fear at his behest, there sat Anthony Fauci, scrawling in his diary, fawning over an email from Barbara Streisand at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease director at the time also fawned over himself, penning that his fame echoed across continents. 

“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,” Fauci wrote in May 2020. 

Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) released on Monday over 1,000 pages of Fauci’s musings, written in his journal from March-December 2022, the same month Fauci left his post at the NIAID after nearly four decades. Paul obtained the diary through a subpoena — and also with the help of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who collected it, reported The Washington Post. 

The diary reveals the doctor’s inner dialogue when he was considered the leading expert in navigating the unprecedented coronavirus era. The entries are making headlines, as Fauci discusses everything from his rise to global prominence to correspondence with celebrities seeking his guidance, like Streisand. 

In one entry, Fauci described the actress Julia Roberts as being fascinated by him: “... she [Roberts] gasped and said that every time she sees me her throat gets dry and she gets nervous,” The New York Times noted. 

Fauci also recounted “outshining” then-President Donald Trump and the baggage and stress such a level of celebrity came with.

“Apparently the WH is very upset that I am being profiled and it looks like I am putting down the POTUS and becoming a star that outshines him. The press is playing into this as is the tweet storm. Very stressful!!” he wrote in May 2020.

Since the outbreak of the virus, Paul has questioned the legitimacy of the origin story of COVID-19 as explained by Fauci. In the dairy’s release, Paul said that Fauci “demonized those who questioned his official narrative,” citing himself as an example. Paul continued, “Many entries in Fauci’s daily historical account completely undermine the official narrative that Fauci and other public health officials espoused.”

In April 2020, Forbes reported that Fauci called for “China to ‘shut down’ its wet markets during an interview with Fox News, as many scientists first believed an outdoor live animal market in Wuhan, China, was the source of the outbreak.”

But in a journal entry dated January 26, 2020, Fauci insisted that the virus did not originate at the market. 

Fauci wrote, “It now appears using epi data and genomic data that the first infection was in early December and was not connected to the market. The infections spread among people weeks before the Chinese reported that they were dealing with a new infection and that gave the virus time to establish itself in multigenerational (sustained) spread. Remember, early on the Chinese were saying that there is no human to human transmission and all the original 27 cases were from the market. Now we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier. Having said that, somewhere the virus jumped from animals to humans.”

Over the years, Paul and others have questioned the source of the virus, speculating it originated from an intentional lab leak in Wuhan, while Fauci maintained his position. However, in a diary entry from May 2021 he said:

“I had always said that the very highly likelihood is that the virus originated naturally from an animal reservoir jumping to a human. However, over the past couple of days given the amount of speculation about the possibility of a lab leak I have been saying that no one is 100% certain of the origin including me and so I am calling for a thorough investigation. Calling for an investigation is merely to put to rest the extraordinary amount of speculation and conspiracy theories. However, this is being interpreted as Fauci flip flopping again. The far right is really amazing in their distortion of reality.”

On Monday night in an interview with Fox News, Kennedy recalled the blind trust the public gave Fauci. “We had to trust the experts and … he [Fauci] was the expert that they elevated.” He continued, “Anybody who did not give complete blind faith to these expert opinions, which we now know were lies, was marginalized, vilified, demonized, and censored.”

Paul is seeking vindication for those marginalized by Fauci and will be questioning the doctor in a congressional hearing on Wednesday. Paul posted on social media that he intends to hold Fauci accountable for his transgressions against the American people. 

Megan Basham of The Daily Wire touched on the situation, posting on X: “Brothers do need to forgive brothers, but when leaders abuse their positions of leadership in the church, they need to repent and acknowledge what they did. Because it hurt people in real and substantial ways.”