House Oversight Chair Demands Answers from Former Health Secretary Over Withheld Fauci Documents

House Oversight & Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., has demanded former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra explain why he withheld Dr. Anthony Fauci’s diary and phone from a select subcommittee investigating the coronavirus pandemic.

In a letter sent Wednesday, Comer requested Becerra provide answers by Sept. 2 as Republicans continue their probe into the origins of COVID-19 and the federal government’s handling of the pandemic.

“The Biden Administration repeatedly concealed information and stonewalled our investigation,” Comer stated in his committee release. He labeled it “unacceptable” that Becerra’s HHS did not produce Fauci’s phone and diary despite records requests Comer claims covered the materials.

The dispute follows the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s recent release of more than 1,100 pages from Fauci’s personal diary, written on government-issued computers between 2019 and 2022. 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 phone.

Kennedy turned over Fauci’s diary following an eight-month search of internal servers, while Senate investigators recently obtained data from Fauci’s government iPhone.

Comer noted that these discoveries raise questions about HHS’s response to a November 2023 congressional request seeking Fauci documents and communications containing terms including “COVID-19,” “gain-of-function” and “Wuhan.” Those terms appear throughout the diary, but Becerra’s department neither produced the diary nor acknowledged its existence.

The committee chair is demanding Becerra explain why the diary and phone were not provided and whether he knew they existed during his tenure. Comer also asked whether other responsive records went unproduced and whether HHS conducted a complete search.

In one of the letter’s most pointed questions, Comer inquired whether any Biden administration officials — including political appointees at HHS or the White House — advised or pressured Becerra to omit responsive documents.

The latest House inquiry comes amid renewed Republican scrutiny of Fauci’s pandemic-era actions. During a July Senate hearing, Fauci repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment rights while facing questions about his handling of COVID-19 and government records.

Comer stated the committee is seeking “answers and accountability” over why potentially significant records were not turned over during initial Republican investigations of the government’s pandemic response.