Sen. Rand Paul is preparing to put Anthony Fauci back in the hot seat, and this time the questions will extend from the origins of COVID-19 to a $1 million prize awarded at the height of the pandemic.
Paul, the Republican chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, claims newly released records show Fauci encouraged colleagues at the National Institutes of Health to nominate him for the lucrative Dan David Prize.
“We have conversations where he’s telling other people at the NIH to nominate him,” Paul told Fox News Digital. “Like, ‘Will you nominate me? I’ll write up my nominating background for you, and then you nominate me.’”
The Kentucky senator is expected to confront Fauci about the alleged solicitation during a closely watched committee hearing Wednesday.
“Why would we let a guy that runs a bureaucracy, why would we want him to be allowed to have a $1 million prize?” Paul asked. “That just boggles my mind.”
Fauci won the Israel-based Dan David Prize in 2021 for his career in public health and his role communicating health guidance during the COVID-19 crisis. Under the award’s rules at the time, 10% of the money was designated for academic scholarships in the recipient’s field.
The foundation praised Fauci for using his communication skills to address a frightened public and explain measures intended to contain the virus.
Paul has not alleged that receiving the prize was illegal. His criticism centers on whether a senior federal official should have actively pursued such a large private award while holding immense power over government health policy.
The allegation comes from a massive release of Fauci’s pandemic-era diary entries and related records. Paul published more than 1,000 pages ahead of Fauci’s compelled appearance before the committee, which is investigating the government’s pandemic response and the unresolved debate over COVID-19’s origins.
The documents offer an unusually personal account of Fauci’s transformation from longtime government scientist to household name.
In a May 2020 entry, Fauci celebrated a prominent Washington Post profile and marveled at the speed of his ascent.
“Very flattering. The situation with my national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable,” Fauci wrote. “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.”
Another entry indicated that the Trump White House had grown upset about his rapidly expanding media profile.
“I mean, he wouldn’t be the first person in Washington that publicity went to his head,” Paul said.
Wednesday’s hearing is expected to revisit the bitter disputes that have defined the Paul-Fauci rivalry, including government-funded virus research, the possibility of a laboratory accident and what Fauci knew during the pandemic’s opening weeks.
Fauci has repeatedly defended his conduct and has denied concealing evidence about the virus’s origins. The newly released diary entries do not, by themselves, establish criminal wrongdoing.
They do, however, give Paul something he has wanted for years: another chance to question Fauci under oath, this time with Fauci’s private words sitting on the table between them.
Paul told Fox News Digital the diary entries show a pattern: "We have conversations where he's telling other people at the NIH to nominate him. Like, 'will you nominate me? I'll write up my nominating background for you, and then you nominate me.'"
The Dan David Prize, disbursed…
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