Bhattacharya backs releasing Fauci notes as Senate hearing looms

Jay Bhattacharya backed releasing Anthony Fauci’s private notes from government servers as Republicans revived the pandemic fight on Capitol Hill. Bhattacharya, who was serving as director of the National Institutes of Health and acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Matt Gutman that the material should be made public because it served the public interest.

The remarks landed as Sen. Rand Paul released more than 1,000 pages of Fauci’s diary entries from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Paul’s office said the material was part of his ongoing investigation into the origins of COVID-19 and risky taxpayer-funded life sciences research, and his Senate reading room labeled one document cache “Tony’s Diary: The Prequel.”

The release set up a contentious Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing with Fauci on Wednesday in Washington. Fauci, who retired from government service in 2022, was due to face questions about the pandemic’s origins, his private notes and the Trump administration’s response. A June 3, 2024 House Oversight hearing with Fauci had already shown how central the former infectious disease chief remained to the long-running fight over the pandemic narrative.

Bhattacharya’s position carried extra weight because his own ascent reflected a broader leadership shake-up inside federal health agencies. The Trump administration tapped him to temporarily oversee the CDC, and The New York Times reported that he would serve as acting director until President Donald Trump appointed a permanent replacement. The acting CDC role can last only 210 days, underscoring how provisional the arrangement remained.

That temporary authority also put Bhattacharya at the center of a credibility test for the institutions he now leads. Treatment Action Group opposed his NIH nomination on March 7, 2025, saying he was selected for his contrarian position, a criticism that followed years of contentious COVID-era debate over lockdowns, mandates and scientific dissent. Bhattacharya’s willingness to endorse releasing Fauci’s notes suggests the administration is still revisiting how much of the pandemic record should remain private, and how much should be opened to scrutiny as future health emergencies loom.