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Rand Paul is a Republican senator from Kentucky who chairs a Senate committee investigating the origins of Covid-19. Dr Anthony Fauci was the top US government adviser on infectious diseases throughout the pandemic and became a lightning rod for criticism over how the response was handled, including questions about whether the virus emerged naturally or leaked from a laboratory. Fauci is due to testify before Paul's committee, giving lawmakers a chance to question him directly.

Ahead of that appearance, Paul has published a large set of Fauci's personal diary entries from the pandemic period, which reportedly include his private exchanges with journalists. The interest lies in comparing what Fauci said privately, including to reporters such as CNN's Jake Tapper, with what he said in public at the time.

This matters because Fauci remains a deeply polarising figure in American politics, and the pandemic response, particularly questions around Covid-19's origins, continues to be a contested and heavily scrutinised issue. Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a prominent critic of Fauci, is among those who have commented on the diary's contents, underlining how the story sits within a broader, long-running political dispute rather than a single isolated event.