Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., wants answers from former chief White House medical advisor Anthony Fauci on why he used his rising fame to lobby colleagues to nominate him for a $1 million prize.
Paul, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, is gearing up for a blockbuster hearing with Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), for his role as spokesman and policy craftsman during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ahead of the hearing, Paul dumped over 1,000 pages of Fauci’s diary, and he told Fox News Digital that one of the issues that would soon come to light during Wednesday’s fight in the Senate was Fauci’s alleged dogged pursuit of a hefty cash prize while serving under former President Joe Biden.
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"We have conversations where he's telling other people at the NIH to nominate him," Paul said. "Like, ‘Will you nominate me? I'll write up my nominating background for you, and then you nominate me.’"
"Why would we let — politicians aren't supposed to get more than $50," he continued. "Why would we let a guy that runs a bureaucracy, why would we want him to be allowed to have a $1 million prize? That just boggles my mind."
In 2021, Fauci was awarded the Dan David Prize, a $1 million award disbursed by the Israel-based Dan David Foundation headquartered at Tel Aviv University. Per the rules of the award, 10% of the prize was meant to be designated for academic scholarships in Fauci’s field.
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The foundation said in a statement at the time that as the pandemic unraveled, Fauci "leveraged his considerable communication skills to address people gripped by fear and anxiety and worked relentlessly to inform individuals in the United States and elsewhere about the public health measures essential for containing the pandemic’s spread."
Despite advising seven presidents and serving at the NIH since the 1980s, Fauci was a career civil servant who never required Senate confirmation.
Strewn across the pages of Fauci’s diary are several instances, particularly in the early stages of the pandemic, that show an individual with a keen understanding of his role in the media.
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In May 2020, for example, Fauci wrote that a "Big front page article [about] me appeared in the Washington Post."
"Very flattering. The situation with my national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable," he said. "It is not [hyperbole] to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable [persons] in the world."
And in another entry shortly after, Fauci noted that the Trump White House was "very upset" about his meteoric rise in the media.
When asked about Fauci's close eye on the media and whether that might have colored his portrayal of the virus, Paul was unsure.
"I mean, he wouldn't be the first person in Washington that publicity went to his head," Paul said.
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