Is that so, Anchovies?
Anchovies’ claim frames the diary release as a moral problem: going out of one’s way to publicize another person’s private thoughts for political gain.
That framing rests on the assumption that the materials were purely private personal papers. Under the Federal Records Act and NARA rules discussed earlier, that assumption is weak for these particular documents.
Why the “private thoughts” framing is contested
- The entries were located on government servers (11 separate ones, according to HHS Secretary Kennedy).
- They were created while Fauci was a senior federal official (NIAID Director) performing official duties during a major public-health crisis.
- The content documents official activities: interactions with the President and White House, policy discussions, media strategy related to the pandemic response, scientific assessments of origins, and communications with other officials.
- HHS treated them as agency records, searched for them, and produced them to congressional oversight committees. Congress then released them as part of an official investigation.
NARA guidance is clear that work-related diaries, journals, and notes of senior officials are
not automatically personal papers. They qualify as personal only if they were not prepared or used in the transaction of agency business and served solely the individual’s private purpose. When they document official decision-making and are stored on government systems, agencies and Congress routinely treat them as federal records subject to retention and oversight.
The “personal political ends” part
Congressional oversight of the COVID response, virus origins, and statements made under oath is a legitimate function of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Releasing contemporaneous notes that show contrasts between private assessments and public statements falls within that function. Critics can (and do) argue the release is selective or politically timed; supporters argue it is accountability for a high-level official whose guidance affected the entire country.
Bottom line
There is a genuine distinction between:
- A purely private diary kept entirely outside government systems and never used for official purposes, and
- Contemporaneous notes by a senior federal official, created and stored on government systems, that record official meetings, policy judgments, and public communications during a national emergency.
The second category is the one NARA rules and congressional practice treat as federal records. Anchovies’ moral objection treats the materials as if they were category 1. The legal and factual record points more strongly toward category 2. That does not eliminate every privacy or fairness concern, but it undercuts the claim that the release was simply “going out of one’s way” to expose private thoughts.
Poor Anchovies.
Now, holler "Musk" and go walk your nonexistsent "dog".
