In a massive development exposing the coordinated effort to protect Dr. Anthony Fauci and silence critics of taxpayer-funded animal experiments, newly released entries from the mad scientist’s personal diary show that former President Barack Obama not only contacted the former NIAID head about the Beaglegate scandal but actively advised him and connected him with his political fixer Eric Schultz to help discredit and shut down the taxpayer watchdog organization White Coat Waste.
This goes far beyond the account of the conversation that Fauci provided in his 2024 memoir.
The Gateway Pundit has done extensive reporting for years on White Coat Waste’s work that first brought Beaglegate into the national spotlight, reporting that the corporate media also spent years trying and failing to debunk.
In August 2021, The Gateway Pundit reported exclusively on WCW’s FOIA-obtained documents showing Fauci’s NIAID had directed a portion of a $375,800 grant to a laboratory in Tunisia where beagles were sedated, their heads locked into mesh cages filled with starved sand flies infected with Leishmania parasites so the insects could feed on the living dogs, and the animals were then isolated alone in desert cages for nine consecutive nights to serve as bait.
Additional records detailed a $424,000 University of Georgia study funded by Fauci’s division in which healthy beagles were given an experimental drug and intentionally infested with parasite-carrying flies, causing them to vocalize in pain for months before being killed, as well as domestic toxicity tests on dozens of beagle puppies that included surgical removal of vocal cords.
In one of many other beagle labs that White Coat Waste exposed, which were funded with American tax dollars under Dr. Fauci, dozens of beagles had their vocal cords cut to silence them before being used to test pharmaceuticals.
The horrifying beagle experiments were real, the funding was real, and the public and congressional pressure that followed forced changes. Some of these Fauci-approved dog tests are even still happening years after he left NIH.
Almost immediately, legacy media outlets and fact-checkers launched a campaign to dismiss Beaglegate as a right-wing smear or exaggeration.
The Washington Post ran pieces framing the public outrage as driven by “misleading” images and a campaign by WCW while downplaying NIAID’s role. One Washington Post cover story referenced by Fauci in his diary had the title, “Fake Beagle Research Claim Deluges Fauci’s Phone Line.”
FactCheck.org and others claimed Fauci’s agency had not directly funded certain specific Tunisia experiments even as documents showed NIAID grants supporting related parasite and drug studies involving the dogs.
EXCLUSIVE: Media Ran a Disinformation Campaign to Protect Fauci From Criticism Over Dog Torture
Later reporting and admissions, including from the Post itself in subsequent years, acknowledged NIH had not been transparent during the massively viral public-relations crisis.
The media’s initial push was not about accuracy; it was about protecting Fauci’s influence during the COVID pandemic.
In his memoir, Fauci described the Beaglegate backlash in self-pitying terms and mentioned a phone call from Obama.
He wrote, “But in the split-screen world in which I lived, the far right had found a new line of attack on me: an animal rights group released a report alleging that I had directed NIH funding to be used for cruel testing on beagle puppies… In the midst of this lunacy, my cell phone rang.”
“It was a familiar and welcome voice on the line: Barack Obama. The former president asked me how I was holding up under this onslaught of lies. ‘I’m concerned about you, Tony,’ he said. ‘You are a civilian, and you should not have to put up with this nonsense. As a politician, I’m used to this, but you have done nothing but serve the American public and the world for decades.’ The conversation was just what I needed, and I hung up feeling much better.”
Fauci framed it as simple personal support.
However, his diary, released this weekend by Sen. Rand Paul, tells a different story.
1/9 — My investigation uncovered that Anthony Fauci kept a diary.
What he wrote privately and what he told the country are two different stories.Today I’m releasing his entries from December 2019 through December 2022. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/58LvmeYkCN
— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) July 25, 2026
On October 25 (page 908), he wrote, “There seems to be no end to the nonsense. No doubt there was a concerted effort led by a group that I’m not sure what it is but it likely is the Republican National Committee which literally has squads of people looking out for anything and everything that I’m involved with and finding some way to attack me. The latest that came out last night and today is the fact that there is apparently an NIAID grant that is testing a vaccine for leishmaniasis in dogs. It vaccinates the dogs and allows sand flies infected with Leishmania to bite the dogs.”
“It is now being billed as horrific cruelty to animals directed personally by me. I have no idea what the grant is nor what they are doing in the grants and I’m asking the staff to investigate that now but it has triggered a new hashtag called #Arrest Fauci. We know now that apparently the grant was not an NIAID grant that supported the controversial research on the dogs. They listed us as the grantee when in fact that was a mistake.
“We are trying to correct this now with a statement to the press. And the crap goes on and on …….. Now they have begun harassing campaign where I am getting dozens of calls on my cell phone using FaceTime from numbers that I do not recognize which are clearly people who now have my cell phone number for harassing me about the Beagle study. Wonderful article by Dana Milbank in the Washington Post blasting the right wing for harassing me.”
The next day (page 909) he continued, “It is so very clear now that this is a concerted effort to discredit me and assassinate my character. We have counted the attacks regarding the Beagle dog experiments, but still the attacks continue falsely claiming that NIAID funded the studies.”
On October 28 (pages 910-11), Fauci recorded a pivotal conversation with the reporter who would later deliver the media counter-narrative.
“I had a long conversation with Yasmeen Abutaleb of the Washington Post yesterday. She is getting very worked up about the fact that she realizes now that there is an organized effort to discredit me and she wants to use the investigative reporter capabilities of the Washington Post to try and find out if they can track funding for this effort to the Republican Party or to any other organization that is trying to discredit me. Let us see how this turns out.” He added that Politifact was simultaneously “trying to debunk the lies about me that are swirling around fast and furious about killing dogs, starting the AIDS epidemic and killing orphaned children. This is a massive campaign to attack me and discredit me.”
FOIA records obtained by WCW separately showed that during this same period Fauci told Abutaleb he would contact her via his personal Gmail account, an arrangement that circumvented federal record-keeping requirements and that he later denied under oath when questioned by Congress.
Abutaleb, then at the Post and later at Reuters, had expressed sympathy about the “crazy articles.”
We obtained this damning email from Fauci in October 2021 where he told a Washington Post reporter covering Beaglegate:
“I will send you an e-mail via my gmail account.”
We just documented 6 times Fauci lied to Congress since 2021.
Will he come clean next week or add more lies… pic.twitter.com/dv149tnQC1
— White Coat Waste (@WhiteCoatWaste) July 24, 2026
The diary makes it very clear that she was being enlisted to turn the Post’s investigative resources against White Coat Waste in the hope of labeling their findings as a partisan attack.
🚨 Anthony Fauci’s diary reveals what he called a “great” phone call with Barack Obama, in which Obama reportedly called Donald Trump Jr. “a f*cking moron,” described President Trump as a ‘hopeless idiot’ and ‘pathologic liar.’ pic.twitter.com/FSyuunfyjc
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 27, 2026
The escalation to the highest political levels is documented on November 4 (page 914).
“Call from Barack Obama – Leslie Dach had contacted Barack Obama to ask him to give me a call to see what he could do to counter the slanderous lies there have been coming from the far right press, extreme right elements in society, and even several members of the Senate and the House. President Obama called me tonight at 5:00 PM on my cell phone and offered to help in any way that he can. He started off the conversation by saying that he was concerned about me and how I was holding up under this onslaught of slanderous lies. HE SAID THAT I WAS A “CIVILIAN” and that I should not have to put with this nonsense. He as a politician is used to this, but I have done nothing but serve that American public and the world for decades. He expressed concern that this would interfere with my important work on behalf of the American people. I explained to him what was going on and he was extremely sympathetic and in fact said that he would call up Ron Klain and or Jeff Zients to ask them to have the administration be proactive in countering these lies. I explained to him that President Biden as well as Ron Klain and Jeff Zients had been extremely helpful and supportive in making it very clear that they had complete confidence in me. In addition, I told him then Jen Psaki had continuously said at White House press conferences when asked whether the President would fire me that indeed the President would never fire me and that this was a bunch of nonsense. President Obama felt that we should do more than just claiming that they have my support and actually go on the offensive and call out people who are allowing this to be said and are not stepping up. President Obama said that he would call up Jeff Zients and tell him to mobilize some of the people in the administration to proactively go out and defend me. I told President Obama about the crazy things that the far-right Republicans were doing including the fact that Donald Trump, Jr. had on his website the sale of sweatshirts and T shirts to collect money for his campaign and on the T shirts and sweatshirts it said “Fauci kills puppies “. Obama said That Donald Trump junior is “A fucking moron”. He apologized for using crude language but then went on to say that Donald Trump was a hopeless idiot who was a pathologic liar. He was very upset that none of the moderate Republicans were actually speaking out on my behalf and were distancing themselves from all of this terrible slanderous behavior against me. It was a great conversation that lasted for 25 minutes and he said that if he hears anything about movement in this direction he will get back to me. It indeed was an incredibly memorable phone call.”
Six days later, on November 10 (page 918), the operational piece fell into place.
“Met by Zoom today with Eric Schultz at the request of Barack Obama – Eric was really very helpful. He has enormous experience at being a comms expert working with Barack Obama. He was involved in deflecting a lot of the criticism against Obama during his Presidency. Eric was very realistic about what can be done in my case although he admitted that the level of attacks against me was clerly organized and unprecendented. He wanted to find out what was being negatively impacted by all of this. I explained to him that it was a very strong strain on me but that I’m strong enough to withstand it and he seemed to resonate with that. I told him that my scientific staff seems to be able to do their job even though the onslaught of this is so clear to them and they feel badly about what I’m going through. I told him that the group that is getting most overwhelmed with this is my legislative and my communications staff. Eric felt that it would be very difficult to shame the right wing media and even the right wing members of Congress and the Senate, and so he is unsure whether going after them would make a difference. He wanted to know whether I needed more help at the staff level in communications and legislation. I don’t think that we do need that but I referred him to Courtney Billet with whom he has already scheduled a meeting. He did say that he was interested in the Washington Post piece that will be written by Yasmeen Abutaleb. He feels that if we can galvanize other media people to call out these groups that are attacking me that this could be very helpful. Once you expose the people who are instigating this, they often are reluctant to continue. And so, I am waiting to see how is conversation with Courtney goes. I am very thankful to Barack Obama for helping to set up this meeting with Eric.“
Schultz, the former Obama White House principal deputy press secretary and longtime Democrat fixer skilled in rapid-response messaging, advised that the most effective path was to expose the “instigating” organizations so they would become reluctant to continue.
This is precisely the investigate-the-investigators approach Abutaleb was already pursuing.
The media deliverable arrived on schedule.
On November 19, Fauci wrote, “PRESS: Fantastic article in the Washington Post online today by Yasmeen Abutaleb the debunking in an incredibly efficient manner the false claims against me by the right wing motivated White Coat Waste project regarding the Beagle experiments”
He later noted the print version co-authored with Beth Reinhard appearing on the Sunday front page and recorded a “very gratifying public response.”
In a statement to The Gateway Pundit, WCW Senior VP Justin Goodman wrote:
“From the moment we exposed Beaglegate, the Washington establishment—bureaucrats, politicians and the corporate media—circled the wagons to defend Fauci over his funding of deadly dog labs. Now, Fauci’s own diary reveals that former President Barack Obama personally helped him coordinate a covert damage-control campaign to discredit White Coat Waste after we ignited what The Washington Post called ‘the biggest firestorm yet for Fauci.’”
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