Dr. Anthony Fauci responds to accusations by Sen. Rand Paul as he testifies before the Senate on July 20, 2021. REUTERS See more of our coverage in your search results.
Add The New York Post on Google The vanity of Anthony Fauci will be his undoing.
Until now, the deceitful health bureaucrat’s reputation has remained intact despite damning revelations about his attempted cover-up of the origins of COVID-19, suspected involvement in outsourcing dangerous research on bat viruses to China and mishandling of the pandemic.
But, days before Fauci has to again face his nemesis, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, on Capitol Hill, his excruciatingly embarrassing diary entries have turned him into a laughingstock.
In a bombshell data dump Saturday, Paul, chairman of the Senate’s oversight committee, which will grill Fauci under oath on Wednesday, released what he said was Fauci’s diary from December 2019 through December 2022.
“What he wrote privately and what he told the country are two different stories,” tweeted Paul, who has long accused Fauci of being involved in the virus’ creation.
Fauci emerges from the diary entries as a frivolous narcissist, possibly corrupt and a really bad speller (for example, “dyswaded” for dissuaded).
As the global death toll mounted, Fauci’s diary shows he was increasingly preoccupied with his rising media profile and reveling in the admiration, especially the praise from celebrities, all of which he meticulously recorded.
“Much praise for me,” he gushed on March 4, 2020, after recording 108 cases of coronavirus in the US and 10 deaths.
“Everyone in the WH is congratulating me on the piece [fawning Politico profile of Fauci]. The public adulation of me has been amazing with every young intern as well as seasoned veteran in the WH coming over to me congratulating me and thanking me for my work and even asking for selfies.”
On March 15, 2020, he wrote: “BIG DAY!… USA = 2888 [cases] with 58 deaths . . . I did all 5 Sunday Shows today (my 3rd Fauci 5) with This Week on ABC, Meet the Press on NBC, Face the Nation on CBS, FOX with Chris Wallace and CNN.”
Day after day he recorded the praise, the media profiles, the “multiple TV cameras and hundreds of camera clicks follow[ing] me,” and his centrality in the decision-making at the White House in those early days of the pandemic.
“I spoke with Bill de Blasio (Mayor – NYC) and convinced him based on what I was saying publicly and my conversation tonight to close the NYC schools. I went on to tell him he should close the bars and restaurants in NYC. He said that he would base this on my recommendation.”
“Big front page article abut [sic] me appeared in the Washington Post. Very flattering,” he wrote on May 21, 2020, noting global deaths of 9,800, with 272 deaths in the US.
“It is not hyoperbole [sic] to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable peson [sic] in the world . . . The entire secret service corps is coming over to me and chatting. They let me into the first gate without even checking ID.”
May 23, 2020, after cases shot up 20 percent overnight: “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.”
After the November 2020 election, he was less diligent about noting the death toll, which was higher under his pal Joe Biden than Donald Trump. But he had plenty of room to record praise from celebrities.
“Praised by Barbara Bush in an interview and several celebrities.
“[Billionaire] Adrienne Arsht sent me an amazing video [the Kennedy Center] put together to celebrate my 80th birthday. They gathered a whole bunch of celebrities to sing to me and offer words of praise and congratulations: Orlando Bloom, Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher, Amy Poehler, Lily Tomlin, Sophia Bush, Matthew McConaughey, Steve Buscemi, Magic Johnson, Joan Baez, and many others.”
Oh yes, there were many others, all faithfully recorded in his name-dropping diary:
Barbra Streisand sent a note expressing deep appreciation for his “important and consistent work.”
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Joe and Jill Biden sent “cookies + note” from the basement in March 2020, saying: “You are our hero. Stay strong and healthy. We need you.”
Dick Cheney called to thank him. Then-VP Mike Pence told him he is “the most visible and trusted asset in the country.”
By June 2022, he was officially a legend: “It has been an extraordinary spring with all of these wonderful honors that I have received. This will have been my 58th honorary doctorate.”
When he announced he was retiring as Biden’s adviser in August 2022, Fauci records the praise from Biden chief of staff Ron Klain: “he considers me ‘one of the most important public servants in the history of the country’ given that I have saved millions of lives over the last several years . . .
“The number of texts and e-mail of thanks and praise . . . are stunning.”
“I am really being somewhat embarrassed by the amount of honors that are [being] given to me and kudos my way.”
In November 2022, he records a “Terrific event,” at which “I was honored at the home of the French Ambassador . . . They sang my praises and we had a very elegant dinner . . . Photo shoot at my home and at work by prize-winning (MOMA) photojournalist Wolfgang Tillmans.”
All those Fauci bobbleheads and “In Fauci we trust” bumper stickers and shrines to the left’s favorite health fascist clearly didn’t help him with his humility problem.
Such is the insatiable nature of vanity that the more adulation he received the more he craved.
The hubris first exploded into public in his 2024 memoir, “On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service,” described by National Review as “insufferably vain — the book lovingly records a seemingly endless torrent of compliments from celebrities, colleagues, and employees.”
Other reviews noted its “vainglorious self-promotion” and said Fauci “has no trouble remembering every bit of praise that others have heaped upon him.”
This is how Fauci described his career at the National Institutes of Health, where he began in 1964 straight out of medical school and rose to be head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: “My upward career trajectory was steep. I was becoming well-known and respected nationally and internationally . . . someone who had the explicit respect of and thus access to the highest leaders of government.”
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Additional files released by Paul in the prelude to Wednesday’s showdown reveal that Fauci, who had been the highest-paid federal official in the US government, also solicited nominations for big-money awards for himself from scientists to whom he had given millions in government grants, according to the files.
He “stacked up cash prizes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars during COVID,” said Paul, including one foreign prize worth a cool $900,000.
Fauci even had his taxpayer-funded staff writing nominations for him.
“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall,” warns the Bible about such hubris.
But his 50 years as a powerful bureaucrat taught Fauci only that he was a god; and after all the damage he wrought, it’s hardly consolation to witness his inevitable fall.
It is simply a tragedy that a man so flawed could wield such power.
