Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has released over a thousand pages of journal entries from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's former top infectious disease expert. The release precedes a likely contentious hearing scheduled for Wednesday, July 29, 2026, where Fauci is expected to testify before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which Paul chairs.

The diaries cover the period from December 2019, just before the U.S. declared a public health emergency, through December 2022, when Fauci stepped down as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases after nearly 40 years.

Senator Paul has long pushed the theory that COVID-19 originated from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, rather than a natural spillover from animals to humans. He has accused Fauci and other government officials of misleading the public and Congress about the virus's source.

While many scientists believe the virus emerged naturally from infected bats and spread to humans at a market in Wuhan in late 2019, the FBI has assessed that the coronavirus "most likely" emerged from a "lab incident in Wuhan." In January 2025, the CIA issued a new assessment favoring the "lab leak" hypothesis, though it noted the finding was made with "low confidence."

Fauci's diary entries reflect early uncertainty about the pandemic's origins. In a July 20, 2021, entry, Fauci recounted his Senate committee appearance where he clashed with Paul over whether the National Institutes of Health funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab.

The investigation and hearing are expected to further explore these conflicting views on the origins of COVID-19.

Sources