A diary played an unusual role in a contentious Senate hearing Wednesday – musings from Anthony Fauci, a scientist who became a leading voice in the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, for years has accused Fauci, the longtime top infectious disease official at the National Institutes of Health, of lying about the origins of the coronavirus. In previous hearings, the now-retired Fauci denied the accusation, calling it “preposterous.” On Wednesday, he invoked the Fifth Amendment in declining to answer more questions. But Paul drew public attention to the latest proceeding by releasing more than 1,000 pages of a long-running diary that Fauci kept – entries that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Fox News his agency extracted from government computers and provided to the GOP-led committee. Fauci declined to answer 100 times, injecting new drama into partisan divides that have festered for years about COVID-19’s origins and handling of the pandemic.

Selected excerpts from the diary show Fauci’s private reflections on the virus’s early spread. A January 26, 2020 entry noted that genomic and epidemiological data indicated the first infection occurred in early December and was not linked to the Wuhan animal market, which later acted only as an amplifier. He wrote that the virus likely jumped from animals to humans elsewhere, a view he echoed publicly weeks later in a USA Today interview. The diary also records Fauci convening government and non‑government scientists to examine the lab‑leak theory championed by Paul, while noting that most evidence supports a natural origin similar to SARS.

Other entries reveal Fauci’s frustrations with President Donald Trump, praising his early concern for public health and later criticizing his claim that increased testing caused more cases. Fauci chronicled his celebrity moments, such as a May 13, 2020 Instagram chat with Julia Roberts, and detailed a call from Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about Trump’s COVID‑19 symptoms, oxygen levels, and the decision to administer Remdesivir. These personal notes illuminate the scientist’s dual role as a public health official and a media figure during the pandemic.