Fauci Takes the Fifth as Marni von Wilpert’s COVID Record Resurfaces

Dr. Anthony Fauci appeared before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday in a contentious hearing that underscored the lasting fallout from his leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Subpoenaed by Chairman Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times, declining to answer questions on the virus’s origins, gain-of-function research, and pandemic policies. 

The hearing followed the release of more than 1,100 pages of Fauci’s personal diary entries from the pandemic years. Those notes reveal not only private musings on COVID’s origins—including early doubts that a Wuhan wet market was the source—but also an intense preoccupation with his own celebrity.

In one entry, as global deaths mounted, Fauci wrote of a flattering Washington Post profile and declared it “not hyperbole to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable person in the world.” 

Fauci repeatedly testified before Congress that the NIH did not fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. However, NIH documents and grant records revealed that EcoHealth Alliance, funded by NIH, did support research that enhanced the transmissibility of… pic.twitter.com/qkkMaTmGFR

— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) July 21, 2026

Fauci accused Paul of an “unhinged obsession” with seeing him imprisoned and said the hearing’s purpose was to trap him into statements that could support prosecution. Paul and other Republicans pressed on alleged inconsistencies in prior testimony, NIH funding of research linked to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the human costs of prolonged lockdowns, school closures, and mandates. 

Fauci, who received a preemptive pardon from President Biden covering actions through January 2025, maintained he had testified truthfully in the past but refused to engage further. 

California Democrats were Fauci’s sycophants. San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert, the Democratic nominee in the 48th Congressional District race, went all-in on Fauci’s playbook—and kept defending it long after irrefutable evidence of harm mounted.

In late 2020, months after many states began reopening and after the Black Lives Matter riots were permitted and encouraged by Democrats during the pandemic, von Wilpert continued advocating prolonged shutdowns. 

She supported bans on children playing sports, stating that “the socioemotional health of our children and our youth in our community is suffering, but everyone is suffering.” 

California’s extended school closures and restrictions produced what researchers have described as devastating learning loss and setbacks in youth social development. Stanford and Harvard analyses and California-focused studies documented students falling roughly half a year behind in math and a third of a year in reading, with larger gaps for low-income and English-learner students. Socio-emotional and mental-health impacts—chronic absenteeism, anxiety, depression, and delayed socialization—persisted for years. 

Von Wilpert’s embrace of COVID restrictions extended well beyond the pandemic’s peak.

In 2022 she was still criticizing states that returned to normalcy, remarking: “It’s really sad to see what’s going on… If you see school districts in Florida who are begging to wear masks, and the Governor prohibiting it… that’s really unfortunate.” 

Florida under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis had barred school mask mandates, prioritizing in-person learning and extracurriculars while California suffered severe restrictions imposed by Democrats.

Research from the University of Southern California and California State University later confirmed what many parents observed in real time: face masks made it significantly more difficult for children to develop and decode emotional understanding. Expressions of sadness proved especially hard to identify; the extra cognitive load was greater for stressed parents and children during critical windows of social-emotional development. 

Von Wilpert, who co-chaired San Diego’s COVID-19 Response and Recovery Committee after winning her council seat in 2020, positioned herself as a science-driven public-health champion. She tested positive herself in 2021 while vaccinated, yet used the moment to urge mandatory vaccination.  

RNC Spokesman Nick Poche put it bluntly: “Marni von Wilpert went all in on the disastrous policies that locked kids out of classrooms, destroyed small businesses, and then turned around and doubled down years after the pandemic. Anthony Fauci was totally caught up in delusions of grandeur, and so is Marni von Wilpert—and Californians are still paying the price for their failures.”

As Fauci’s diary and his sudden silence reopen national debate over accountability, Californians confronting unfinished learning recovery, youth mental-health challenges, and economic scars from the longest and strictest restrictions have fresh reason to examine the local leaders who enthusiastically followed his lead. 

Von Wilpert is now seeking a seat in Congress. The record of those COVID-era choices remains part of the campaign conversation, despite Fauci invoking the Fifth Amendment.