The attorneys general of Florida, West Virginia, and Louisiana have subpoenaed Dr. Anthony Fauci, demanding records tied to whether he used his pandemic authority to line his own pockets.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey, and Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill issued the joint subpoena requesting documents and communications generated between January 2020 and August of this year. The probe centers on whether Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the White House's COVID-19 czar, shaped public health guidance not to protect Americans, but to advance his own financial interests.
The subpoena lands days after the Senate Homeland Security Committee voted along party lines to hold Fauci in contempt for refusing to answer questions about prize money he collected, COVID lockdowns, U.S. funding for gain-of-function research, experiments that modify viruses to study how they might become more dangerous, and the origins of the pandemic itself. Fauci's attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the state subpoenas, the New York Post reported.
Uthmeier laid out the case bluntly during a Wednesday appearance on Fox News' "America's Newsroom." He told viewers his office is zeroing in on what he called Fauci's "self-dealing", a trail that runs through awards, book contracts, board positions, private foundation partnerships, and professorships the former COVID czar pursued while still directing national health policy.
Uthmeier said in a statement:
"Government officials have a certain level of immunity in their official capacities, but if Fauci personally profited off of the 'guidance' he issued, that very well could have broken Florida law."
The Florida investigation extends beyond financial gain. Uthmeier's subpoena requests documents and communications covering vaccine efficacy and boosters, natural immunity, potential adverse events including myocarditis risks, messaging strategies, and communications with vaccine manufacturers. In short, the state wants to know what Fauci knew, when he knew it, and what he told the public instead.
Uthmeier framed the stakes in personal terms for his state's residents:
"Fauci's diary focused more on self-promotion than the legitimate safety concerns from the mRNA vaccines. While Fauci was pushing for book deals, awards, and fortune and fame, Floridians were being deceived and harmed by his misrepresentations."
The subpoenas follow the release of Fauci's personal diary entries by Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Paul made the diaries public last month. The entries, written between 2019 and 2022, were preserved on government computers at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Among the most consequential revelations: in some of the earliest entries, Fauci disputed the theory that SARS-CoV-2 originated in a Wuhan, China, wet market. That private skepticism stands in sharp contrast to his public posture. For months, Fauci championed the natural-spillover hypothesis, the idea that the virus jumped from animals to humans, and dismissed proponents of the lab-leak theory. His own diary suggests he harbored doubts he never shared with the public.
The diary also captured Fauci's growing preoccupation with his newfound fame during the pandemic. Entries reflected private queries to colleagues about awards he could apply for, a portrait of a senior government official focused on personal recognition while Americans were dying, losing businesses, and watching their children fall behind in shuttered schools.
Emails released by Sen. Paul add a concrete dollar figure to the self-dealing allegations. In April 2021, Fauci received the Dan David Prize, a nearly $1 million award affiliated with Tel Aviv University, for his leadership during the pandemic. His personal assistant, Patricia Conrad, sent him a message that read: "Congratulations....you're rich!" His chief of staff, Greg Folkers, followed with his own note: "I want my 15%."
Fauci acknowledged receipt of the prize funds approximately one month later. Uthmeier has alleged that Fauci asked subordinates to apply for awards on his behalf, a claim the released emails appear to support.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill was direct about what the record already shows:
"What we know already is Fauci lied, we just don't know yet how much. But he lied about something as basic as keeping a diary."
That statement points to a separate layer of the investigation. Fauci apparently denied the existence of the very diary entries that government computers later preserved. If Murrill's characterization holds, it means Fauci misled investigators about something that should have been easy to verify, raising the question of what else he may have concealed.
The state-level subpoenas arrive alongside mounting federal pressure. The Senate Homeland Security Committee's party-line contempt vote covers Fauci's refusal to answer questions about the prize money, lockdown policies, U.S. funding for gain-of-function research, and the pandemic's origins.
At a July 29 hearing before the committee, Fauci delivered an opening statement in which he rebuked Paul for what he called an "obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution." He then declined to answer questions. Paul has argued that Fauci voided any claim to privilege by choosing to make that opening statement before refusing to respond to the committee's inquiries.
GOP senators on the panel also contended that Fauci cannot invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination because former President Joe Biden pardoned him for any potential federal crimes committed between January 2014 and January 2025. A pardon eliminates the risk of federal prosecution, and the Fifth Amendment protects against compelled self-incrimination, not embarrassment.
Paul is now seeking to have the contempt resolution certified by Vice President JD Vance in his capacity as president of the Senate, bypassing a full chamber vote. If certified, the prosecution referral would go directly to DC U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office. Whether Vance will agree to certify remains an open question.
Biden's pardon covers potential federal crimes across an eleven-year window. But it does nothing to protect Fauci from state-level investigations or prosecution. That gap is precisely where Uthmeier, McCuskey, and Murrill are operating.
Uthmeier has not named a specific Florida statute, but his public statements make the theory plain: if a government official used his official position to issue guidance that served his personal financial interests rather than the public, that conduct may violate state law regardless of any federal pardon. The subpoena's scope, covering vaccine efficacy, adverse events, messaging strategies, and communications with manufacturers, suggests the attorneys general believe the self-dealing went well beyond collecting prize money.
Several key questions remain unanswered. Fauci's legal team has not formally responded to the subpoenas. The full content of the redacted awards document released by Paul's office has not been made public. And the specific financial benefits under investigation beyond the Dan David Prize, the book deals, board seats, foundation partnerships, and professorships Uthmeier referenced, have not been detailed.
What has been detailed is a pattern: a senior federal official who privately questioned the science he publicly sold, who pursued personal awards and recognition while shaping the policies that governed 330 million Americans, and who, when called to account, refused to answer and hid behind a pardon granted by a departing president.
Accountability delayed is not accountability denied. Three attorneys general just made sure Fauci knows the difference.
