Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blamed Dr. Anthony Fauci for “incalculable damage” to public trust after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) released more than 1,000 pages of Fauci’s pandemic-era journals on Monday ahead of a Senate hearing on Wednesday.
Kennedy Accuses Fauci Of Damaging Public Trust
“[Fauci’s] focus was on promoting himself, on getting on TV and not doing public health,” Kennedy said on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.” He said officials elevated Fauci as an unquestionable authority while critics were “marginalized, vilified, demonized, censored.”
Kennedy also accused the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director of misleading Americans about COVID-19’s origins. “The press was part of this collaboration,” he said. “It also did incalculable damage to public health.”
Journals Renew Fight Over COVID Origins
The records include a January 2020 entry in which Fauci wrote that early evidence suggested the Wuhan market “was not the source, it was the amplifier.” He wrote that the earliest infection appeared to have occurred in December 2019.
Paul highlighted the entry on X, calling it “a blatant violation, a betrayal of the public trust,” and alleging that “Fauci engaged in a cover-up from the very beginning of the pandemic.” Paul has pursued Fauci over U.S.-funded coronavirus research and earlier warned, “If you lied to Congress and helped cover up the origins of a pandemic, you will answer for it.”
Fauci has denied misleading Congress or suppressing the lab-leak hypothesis. During 2024 testimony, he said a laboratory origin was “not inherently a conspiracy theory” and maintained that evidence favored animal-to-human transmission. The World Health Organization said in 2025 that major information gaps remain and both zoonotic spillover and a laboratory incident must stay under consideration.
Fauci Faces Paul At Senate Hearing
Paul’s Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee scheduled Fauci’s testimony for Wednesday, July 29, at 8:30 am Fauci led NIAID from 1984 until retiring in 2022.
Kennedy said Paul would likely question Fauci about the diaries and warned that false testimony could carry legal consequences. “If he lies again, then he could be subject to perjury prosecution,” Kennedy said.
The hearing extends a feud that produced some of the pandemic’s fiercest congressional exchanges. In 2021, Fauci told Paul, “You do not know what you are talking about,” while rejecting claims that NIH-funded research caused COVID-19.
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