House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is pressing former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra to explain why Dr. Anthony Fauci’s diary and government phone were not turned over during a congressional investigation into COVID-19 despite requests that Comer says covered those records.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is demanding that former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra explain why federal officials did not provide Congress with Dr. Anthony Fauci’s diary and government-issued phone during an investigation into the COVID-19 pandemic.
Comer sent Becerra a letter Wednesday requesting answers by Sept. 2 as House Republicans continue examining the origins of COVID-19, federal pandemic policies and the government’s handling of records related to Fauci.
“The Biden Administration repeatedly concealed information and stonewalled our investigation,” Comer said in a committee statement.
Comer said it was “unacceptable” that HHS under Becerra did not produce Fauci’s diary or government phone despite congressional records demands that he contends encompassed both.
The chairman’s questions follow recent disclosures showing that the records remained within HHS systems and were later located under the department’s current leadership.
Last month, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee released more than 1,100 pages from Fauci’s personal diary.
The diary was written from 2019 through 2022 on government-issued computers.
According to Comer’s letter, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. produced the diary after it was discovered on department servers.
Kennedy also provided the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations with a copy of Fauci’s government-issued phone, Comer wrote.
CNN reported in July that Kennedy turned over the diary following an eight-month search of internal HHS servers.
The network reported separately this month that Senate investigators had obtained data from Fauci’s government iPhone.
Those discoveries have prompted Comer to revisit HHS’s response to a November 2023 congressional demand for documents and communications involving Fauci.
That request sought records containing terms that included “COVID-19,” “gain-of-function” and “Wuhan.”
According to the committee, those terms appear repeatedly in Fauci’s diary.
Becerra’s HHS nevertheless did not turn over the diary or acknowledge that the document existed, Comer said.
The committee chairman is now asking Becerra whether he knew the diary and phone existed while he led the department and why neither was provided to congressional investigators.
Comer is also seeking information about the scope of the department’s original document search.
His letter asks whether HHS conducted a complete search for materials responsive to Congress and whether additional relevant records may have existed but were never produced.
The inquiry also raises the possibility of political involvement in document-production decisions.
Among the questions Comer directed to Becerra is whether officials in the Biden administration, including political appointees at HHS or personnel at the White House, advised or pressured him to withhold responsive records.
No evidence establishing that such pressure occurred was cited in the material described, and Comer is seeking Becerra’s response to that question.
The dispute adds another front to Republican investigations involving Fauci and the federal government’s pandemic response.
Fauci previously served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and became one of the most prominent federal officials overseeing the government’s response to COVID-19.
Republican lawmakers have continued examining his role in pandemic policy, research funding, recordkeeping and questions surrounding the origins of the virus.
During a Senate hearing in July, Fauci repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment rights when questioned about his pandemic-era actions and government records.
The newly located diary and phone have intensified congressional scrutiny over what information was available to HHS during the Biden administration and whether Congress received all records covered by its requests.
For Comer, the central issue is now not only what the records contain, but why they were unavailable to House investigators when Republicans first sought them.
He said the committee is pursuing “answers and accountability” regarding the handling of potentially significant documents tied to its pandemic investigation.
Becerra has until Sept. 2 to respond to the committee’s questions about whether he knew the records existed, how HHS conducted its searches, whether other responsive materials went unproduced and whether anyone within the Biden administration influenced decisions about what Congress received.
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