Newly released diary pages from Dr. Anthony Fauci show harsh criticism of Donald Trump, warm praise for Chinese health leaders, and a ransomware breach that wiped confidential records, fueling Sen. Rand Paul’s document probe.
Just the News reported that Sen. Rand Paul made public the latest batch of Fauci’s so-called diary entries, spanning years before and during the first Trump administration.
The pages capture the longtime federal health official writing that Trump should be impeached, calling Chinese CDC chief Gao Fu a “very smart and nice guy,” and describing how ransomware encrypted an unprotected folder holding letters and confidential files tied to the anthrax attacks. Paul, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, is examining whether Fauci or his aides destroyed government documents to dodge public-records requests.
Fauci kept a meticulous private record of meetings, calls, and daily judgments across nearly four decades as one of the government’s most influential health officials. The newly released pages put those judgments in plain view.
In an entry covering Jan. 1, 7, 2019, written during a government shutdown, Fauci wrote of Trump:
"He is acting more and more bizarre. Should be impeached, but Dems are rightfully concerned that this will galvanize his base,"
Earlier notes from the 2016 campaign track were no gentler. After a September debate, he wrote that “Trump made a fool of himself in the debate on Monday 26 Sept.” When a recording of Trump speaking about women became public that October, Fauci logged:
"Trump caught in [sic] Tape denigrating women,"
He added: “Anyone else would be disqualified by this; however, his people still support him.” Other lines from that stretch said “Trump acting very erratically. Continues to implode,” and later, “Trump continues to spout outrageous things on one day and seem reasonable on the next day.” He also labeled planned nominations “scary.”
One entry sized up then-Congressman Price of Georgia, later Trump’s first Health and Human Services secretary, as “against ACA, Medicare/Medicaid, abortion, anti-science” and an orthopedic surgeon, before adding he would “give him a chance, but let us see.”
The same diary struck a different tone with Chinese officials. A September 2017 entry described a “Big Chinese visitor day” at the National Institutes of Health.
"Big Chinese visitor day, Hosted Gao Fu (George) here at NIH. He is the Director General of the China CDC. Very smart and nice guy,"
Fauci wrote that he then went to the Center for Strategic and International Studies to meet a Chinese delegation that included Vice Premier Liu Fandong, Minister Li Bin of National Health and Family Planning, and Dr. Cao, director of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. Then-Secretary Price was present. Fauci recorded that he gave a “brief description of activities of NIH in collaboration with Chinese.”
Gao Fu later headed China’s CDC during the COVID-19 pandemic before leaving that post in 2022. The diary’s friendly framing of those contacts now sits beside years of public debate over early pandemic transparency and U.S.-China health ties.
A July 22, 2016 entry described a personal cybersecurity failure with lasting consequences. Fauci wrote that ransomware encrypted his entire unprotected “CDrive, Word Files” folder.
"I was attacked by ‘Ransonware’ and my entire unprotected folder (CDrive, Word Files) was encrypted. Luckily, I had a backup of most of my historical daily notes and my autobiography was on a separate, nonaccessible folder. However, I lost all of the letters that I have ever written as well as other important documents in the Word Files folder,"
He explained why the loss cut deeper than ordinary correspondence:
"I had originally created this [folder] for the confidential files that I made right after the anthrax attacks since I did not want them accessible to anyone. However, I soon began putting other important documents into that folder, Bad idea!!!"
Government emails are generally required to be preserved under the Federal Records Act. Willfully and unlawfully concealing, removing, mutilating, obliterating, destroying, or carrying away any public record or document can bring up to three years in prison, a fine of up to $2,000, or both. Paul’s committee is now asking whether destruction or loss of records blocked lawful disclosure.
Paul summoned Fauci to testify before the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee in August. Fauci refused to answer most questions, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The panel referred him to the Justice Department for possible prosecution for contempt of Congress. Some constitutional experts argued he did not have the right to claim the Fifth in that setting, the reporting noted.
President Joe Biden later granted Fauci a pardon covering all potential federal offenses from 2014 through 2024. Paul told Just the News in June the pardon should not stand unchallenged.
"I think we should challenge the pardon, because it's an extraordinary pardon. It's a pardon not for a specific crime, and it's a pardon over a 10-year period. It's the same that he got, the same thing Hunter Biden got."
Last month the committee also released memos showing Fauci privately believed the COVID-19 death rate was much lower than the figure he gave Congress only a month afterward. Those memos, the diary pages, the ransomware admission, and the broad pardon now sit in one investigative stack.
The diary does not read like casual doodling. It is a running ledger from a man who shaped national health policy for decades: hard language about a Republican president, soft language about Chinese counterparts, and a clear admission that confidential material, including post-anthrax files he wanted kept from everyone, sat in an unprotected folder until ransomware took it.
Paul’s stated aim is narrower than culture-war scorekeeping. He is testing whether federal records rules were followed and whether a sweeping pardon and a Fifth Amendment wall will close the file before the public gets a full answer. The Federal Records Act still sets criminal penalties for unlawful removal or destruction of public documents. A referral for contempt remains with the Justice Department.
Fauci retired after serving as a leading government health official during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pages Paul released do not depend on later spin. They are Fauci’s own contemporaneous words about Trump, about Gao Fu and the Chinese delegation, and about the day an unprotected folder of letters and confidential files disappeared behind encryption.
When powerful officials keep private scorecards, praise foreign counterparts, and lose sensitive files, Congress has a duty to follow the paper trail, pardon or no pardon.
