House Oversight accuses Becerra of hiding Fauci’s COVID diary and phone

FIRST ON FOX: Dr. Anthony Fauci’s woes on Capitol Hill are far from over after his contentious Senate hearing late last month.

The House Oversight Committee is now questioning why Fauci’s COVID-19 pandemic-era diary and cellphone were not turned over to Congress before this year, and it is placing the blame on former President Joe Biden’s top health official.

In a letter sent Monday, Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., highlighted a November 2023 request by House Republicans for former Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra, a California gubernatorial candidate, to produce any records from Fauci containing the words “COVID-19,” “gain-of-function,” and “Wuhan.”

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“These terms, among others outlined in the document request, appear throughout Dr. Fauci’s diary. Despite the existence of this clearly relevant and responsive information, you failed to include any portion of Dr. Fauci’s diary in your response, let alone even acknowledge its existence,” Comer wrote.

“The Committee is concerned that you either intentionally withheld this information, or that you failed to conduct an adequate search of the Department’s systems as requested in the November 2, 2023, letter.”

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Current HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. turned over Fauci’s COVID-era diary and cellphone to Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., earlier this year.

The diary in particular caused an uproar among Fauci’s critics, who accused him of gloating about his influence and celebrity during the pandemic at a time when millions of Americans were grappling with a slew of government regulations.

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More than 1,000 pages released to the public showed insight into Fauci’s private thoughts as pandemic science rapidly evolved, as well as entries of the longtime public health official mulling over his newfound fame.

Fauci told the Oversight Committee’s now-defunct pandemic subcommittee in June 2024, “The CDC was responsible for those kinds of guidelines to schools, not me,” when discussing measures like the six-foot distancing rule that played a major role in keeping schools closed across the country.

Multiple diary entries suggest Fauci at least discussed school closures with political leaders. For example, one 2020 excerpt has the doctor saying he “convinced” then-New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio “based on what I was saying publicly and my conversation tonight to close the NYC schools.”

Fauci spoke to none of that during his Senate hearing in late July, however. Instead, the infectious disease expert invoked the Fifth Amendment over 100 times as Republicans hammered him over the pandemic’s effects and the revelations from his diary.

Becerra, whom Comer is directing scrutiny at now, is currently running for governor of California.

Comer asked him to answer a series of questions by Sept. 2 of this year, including whether he was aware of the diary’s existence, why it was not produced in House Republicans’ initial document request, and whether any fellow Biden officials pressured him to withhold anything from the 2023 request.

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Fox News Digital reached out to Becerra’s gubernatorial campaign for a response.

It comes on the heels of a former Fauci adviser, David Morens, pleading guilty to conspiracy to conceal COVID-19 records related to grant funding.

During his June 2024 House hearing, Fauci conceded it was “inappropriate” for Morens to edit a press release concerning grant funding and that Morens violated federal health policy by editing a letter sent to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), among other actions.