Fauci diary entries: ‘Press is going wild with me’

Former chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci was keenly aware of the media’s interest in him early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, and considered some of the attention “flattering,” according to diary entries released by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

Over the weekend, Paul published more than a thousand pages of Fauci’s diary entries as well as an article about Fauci that the doctor had saved. In one entry, he discussed how he sought to use his media appearances to communicate what was known about the coronavirus at the time.

“Press is going wild with me. Front page in Washintgton Post yesterday and Op Ed by Maureen Dowd in NY Times today about me and my relationship with the POTUS. Profile by Peter Nicholas on me in The Atlantic. I am trying in several articles and on TV to clarify that the POTUS is tsalking about hope for therapies although there are no good data, while I must stick to the science and so fundamentally we are approaching this from different, but not conflicting standpoints,” Fauci wrote on March 22, 2020.

By a May 21, 2020, diary entry, Fauci had become very aware of his heightened profile........

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