Sen. Rand Paul's office published 1,600 pages of Dr. Anthony Fauci's personal diary without removing sensitive medical information belonging to 20 individuals, a lapse the office only partially corrected after the documents were already public.
The unredacted files went out ahead of Fauci's testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last week, Just the News reported, citing an investigation by NOTUS. The diary pages, recovered from multiple servers where they had been stored, contained references to people suffering from cancer, Ebola, and HIV, conditions Fauci had access to through his decades-long tenure running the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
After the initial release, Paul's office pulled the files and reposted them with partial redactions. But NOTUS found that not all personal medical information was blacked out in the replacement documents, leaving at least some of the 20 affected individuals still exposed.
Leslie Adelman, one of the people whose medical history appeared in the unredacted pages, told NOTUS via text message that the disclosure was:
"unconstitutional and truly disappointing."
Adelman's reaction was the only on-the-record response from any of the 20 individuals identified in the NOTUS report. Paul's office, for its part, offered no public explanation for why the diary was released without redactions in the first place, or why the follow-up scrub failed to catch every instance of private health data.
The episode lands in the middle of an already combative stretch between Paul and Fauci. The senator has spent months pressing the former NIAID director on COVID-era decisions, and Fauci pleaded the Fifth dozens of times during a prior Senate appearance rather than answer questions about the pandemic response.
The diary trove totals 1,600 pages. The documents were found on multiple servers where they had been stored, or, as the reporting describes it, hidden, before being handed over to Paul. Neither the identity of the person or entity that turned them over nor the specific servers involved has been disclosed publicly.
Fauci kept the diary during his years leading NIAID, and its contents reflect the breadth of his access to private medical details. The conditions referenced, cancer, Ebola, HIV, suggest the 20 individuals may have been patients, research subjects, or contacts whose health information Fauci recorded. The reporting does not clarify the nature of their relationship to him.
Fauci's diary has already produced separate headlines. Entries in the documents appeared to contradict his congressional testimony on COVID-19's death rate, adding fuel to Republican arguments that Fauci misled lawmakers during the pandemic.
The sequence matters. Paul's office released the full, unredacted diary to the public. Only after the documents were already accessible did the office remove them and upload a version with some personal medical details blacked out. NOTUS found that the replacement files still contained unredacted medical information for at least some of the 20 people.
No legal or regulatory framework governing the release of medical information in congressional documents was cited in the reporting. It remains unclear whether federal health-privacy statutes apply to records published by a Senate office, or whether the affected individuals have any recourse.
The unanswered questions are significant. Which portions of the medical data remain visible in the partially redacted version? Did anyone in Paul's office review the 1,600 pages before publication? And why did the follow-up redaction miss information that NOTUS was able to identify?
Paul has been aggressive in pursuing accountability from Fauci. He moved to fast-track a contempt vote before the Senate recess, and other lawmakers have warned Fauci that even a presidential pardon has limits if he provides false testimony to Congress.
Conservatives have rightly demanded transparency from Fauci. His refusal to answer straightforward questions under oath, his shifting public statements on COVID origins, and the contents of his own diary all warrant the scrutiny Paul has brought. State attorneys general in Alabama and Florida have pushed their own cases against Fauci after his repeated Fifth Amendment pleas.
But releasing 1,600 pages of documents containing the private medical histories of 20 people, without first scrubbing their names and conditions, is a failure of basic diligence. The partial fix made it worse, not better, because it showed Paul's office recognized the problem and still left gaps.
The goal of exposing Fauci's record is legitimate. The means have to meet the same standard of care that conservatives demand from every other government office handling sensitive personal data. Rep. James Comer previously warned Fauci that a pardon would not shield him from consequences for dishonesty, a principle that applies equally to carelessness with other people's private health information.
Holding Fauci accountable and protecting the privacy of ordinary people are not competing goals. A Senate office that can manage 1,600 pages of oversight material can manage a redaction review before hitting "publish."
