Jake Tapper. Rand Paul released more than a thousand pages of Anthony Fauci’s journal entries on Monday, putting Fauci’s own notes at the center of a fight over the origins of COVID-19. The material landed before Fauci was scheduled to appear before the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday.
The entries run from December 2019 to December 2022, covering almost the full stretch of the pandemic response and Fauci’s final month as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. That makes the release more than a document dump: it gives the hearing a paper trail that reaches back to the first public questions about where the virus came from.
Rand Paul Opens Fauci Files
Paul, a Republican senator from Kentucky and head of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, subpoenaed Fauci to appear and then released the diaries ahead of the hearing. The move puts Fauci’s private notes into the public record before he takes the witness table.
The entries begin in December 2019. In January 2020, Fauci wrote that “we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier,” and added that “somewhere the virus jumped from animals to humans.” About a week later, he referenced a conference call in which several top infectious disease experts thought the coronavirus might not have originated in nature.
Fauci’s January And May Notes
By May 26, 2021, Fauci was writing that “The situation continues to get 'out of control' with regard to the press reports concerning my 'flip flopping' concerning the theory of the origin of the virus.” In that same entry, he said he had always maintained that the virus most likely originated naturally from an animal reservoir jumping to a human.
He also wrote that “no one is 100% certain of the origin including me” and added, “I am calling for a thorough investigation.” Those lines matter because they show Fauci describing both his position and the uncertainty that still surrounded the origin question after more than a year of argument.
Wuhan, FBI And CIA Assessments
The release comes as the broader debate remains split. Many scientists believe the virus emerged naturally, while the FBI has assessed it most likely emerged in a lab incident in Wuhan. In January 2025, the CIA issued a new assessment favoring the lab leak hypothesis with low confidence.
Paul sharpened the political fight on Monday with the line “Dear Diary,” then accused Fauci of saying “it's implausible that it came from the lab, and we're really convinced it came from these wild animals in the marketplace. But that level of dishonesty is really astounding.” The diaries now give him a public record to press at Wednesday’s hearing, and they give Fauci a chance to answer for the gap between those early notes and the public case he later made.
