‘Hopefully, this device will address many of the questions he refused to answer at last week’s hearing,’ Sen. Ron Johnson said.
A Senate panel investigating Dr. Anthony Fauci has obtained a copy of the phone he used during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations acquired an iPhone that is a copy of the iPhone Fauci used while he was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022, a spokeswoman for Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the panel’s chairman, told The Epoch Times via email on Aug. 6.
The phone was acquired on Wednesday from the Department of Health and Human Services, of which the institute is part, the spokeswoman said.
“Hopefully, this device will address many of the questions he refused to answer at last week’s hearing,” Johnson said in a statement posted on X.
Fauci’s legal counsel and the Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
Fauci, 85, declined to answer questions while appearing before a different Senate panel on July 29. He said he was invoking his constitutional right against self-incrimination after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the chairman of that panel, said that he would refer Fauci for prosecution if he lied under oath.
Paul’s panel on Aug. 6 voted to hold Fauci in contempt, in part because he declined to answer questions about a period of time covered by a preemptive pardon that then-President Joe Biden granted him in early 2025.
The pardon covers conduct from Jan. 1, 2014, through Jan. 19, 2025.
Fauci said he was following the advice of his lawyers.
Paul released Fauci’s diary entries in July, showing that the doctor sometimes wrote things that differed from his comments to the public while heading the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci is now a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Medicine and the McCourt School of Public Policy.
Thousands of Fauci’s emails during his time in the government have been released pursuant to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, but the contents of Fauci’s phone are largely unknown. The government has not provided Fauci’s texts when filling FOIA requests from The Epoch Times, and only released several dozen texts to another outlet after being sued.
Those texts largely consisted of people reaching out to Fauci about the pandemic, including Dr. Vivek Murthy, who asked Fauci for “confidential advice” regarding decisions on sporting events such as basketball games. Fauci did not respond.
Then-Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) texted Fauci to recommend “strict quarantine” for seniors, noting the elderly were more at risk from COVID-19.
“I will bring this approach to the [task force] meeting,” Fauci responded. “It is definitely worthy of serious consideration.”
