Newly released diary entries from former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci indicate he enlisted assistance from media contacts and former President Barack Obama in 2021 to combat allegations surrounding NIAID-funded experiments involving beagle puppies.
Fauci's diary entries, reportedly dug up from government servers and released by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), detail his efforts to counter what he described as a "concerted effort to discredit me and assassinate my character." The allegations, often referred to as "Beaglegate," centered on a NIAID-funded study that involved euthanizing puppies after experiments.
According to an entry from early November 2021, Fauci noted a call from Obama, who expressed concern and offered to contact then-President Biden's chief of staff Ron Klain or other administration officials to proactively counter the "lies." During this conversation, Obama reportedly made critical remarks about Donald Trump Jr. and former President Donald Trump.
Days later, a senior adviser to Obama also contacted Fauci to discuss a public relations strategy for the "Beaglegate" accusations.
The White Coat Waste Project, a bipartisan organization, was instrumental in bringing the scandal to public attention. Internal grant documents show that NIAID approved a $375,000 grant from 2019 to 2020 for research that involved sedating puppies, placing their snouts into mesh pouches to be exposed to sand flies, and subsequently euthanizing the animals.
This research drew criticism from members of Congress and led to accusations that Fauci had lied in House testimony regarding his use of personal email for government business. The Post reported that Fauci emailed a Washington Post journalist, Yasmeen Abutaleb, stating he would communicate via his Gmail account amid discussions about the backlash.
Fauci's diary entries reference Abutaleb more than two dozen times, praising an article she published in November 2021 that he felt addressed the "false claims against me." He wrote on October 27, 2021, that he had asked Abutaleb to "hold back on doing any big story" while she worked to uncover the source of the organized effort to discredit him. He noted in another entry that Abutaleb was "getting very worked up" and wanted to use The Washington Post's resources to investigate potential Republican Party or other organizational links to the campaign against him.
In June 2024 testimony before a House subcommittee investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, Fauci stated he had approved the beagle experiment funding after peer review. However, earlier diary entries from October 2021 claimed he had "no idea what the grant is nor what they are doing in the grants" and had asked staff to investigate.
David Morens, a former senior adviser to Fauci, has been indicted this year for federal records offenses, including the concealment and destruction of documents and the use of a private email for communications with grantees. He had previously evaded Freedom of Information Act requests.
A representative for Obama and Abutaleb, who now works for Reuters, did not respond to requests for comment. An attorney for Fauci stated that the email exchange with Abutaleb pertained to a personal matter.
White Coat Waste Project characterized Fauci's actions as a "covert" public relations campaign. Justin Goodman, senior vice president of the organization, stated that the diary entries reveal Obama's personal involvement in coordinating a damage-control effort to discredit White Coat Waste after the group highlighted the beagle experiments.