Fauci Orders Staff “DELETE EVERYTHING Now!”

Dr. Anthony Fauci told a top aide to “delete this e-mail after you read it,” and that instruction now sits next to his sworn testimony denying he ever did any such thing.

Quick Take

A February 2020 email shows Fauci telling then-National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins to delete a message after reading it.
Fauci repeated a nearly identical deletion request to his chief of staff, Greg Folkers, in July 2020.
In 2024 sworn House testimony, Fauci said flatly he never deleted any records tied to the virus’s origins.
Senate investigators say the emails contradict that testimony and have called Fauci back to answer for it.

The Emails Senate Investigators Say Contradict Fauci’s Sworn Denials

Senate Homeland Security Chairman Rand Paul released records showing Fauci wrote to Francis Collins on February 2, 2020: “Please delete this e-mail after you read it”. The message came during early discussions about the virus’s origins, including talk of getting ahead of “the science and narrative” of COVID-19. Five months later, Fauci sent nearly the same line to his own chief of staff, Greg Folkers.

Paul’s committee says these emails directly clash with what Fauci told the House Oversight Committee in 2024. Asked point blank whether he deleted any emails or records tied to the Wuhan lab or the virus’s origins, Fauci answered under oath: “No, I did not”. He gave the same answer when asked if he ever deleted any official record at all.

Fauci testified in 2024 that he had never deleted an official record, while the newly reported 2012 email appears to show him directing the deletion of an official NIH email. That contradiction deserves a clear explanation.

— Dennis Quaid (@DennisQuail7) August 30, 2026

An instruction to delete an email is not the same as proof the email was destroyed forever. Nobody has yet produced server logs or backup records showing the messages were actually wiped. But the instruction itself, paired with a flat denial under oath, is the kind of contradiction that demands a straight answer, not a shrug.

Why Federal Rules Make This More Than a Housekeeping Habit

Government emails about official business are not private property employees can toss out. Federal law and National Archives guidance say emails tied to agency decisions count as federal records, and destroying them without proper authority is against the rules. The National Institutes of Health’s own policy goes further, calling any deletion of a qualifying record email “unauthorized destruction” that must be reported to the National Archives.

That is the backdrop that makes Paul’s discovery serious. If Fauci’s instructions led to actual deletion of records tied to pandemic origins, that is not just an awkward email, it is a potential violation of federal recordkeeping law. House Oversight materials say the committee has “obtained records revealing that you directed employees of the National Institutes for Health to destroy federal records”.

A Pattern Around Fauci’s Inner Circle, Not Just One Email

The deletion instructions do not exist in isolation. House Oversight investigators separately built a case against Fauci’s longtime senior adviser, Dr. David Morens, who admitted he learned “how to make emails disappear” before Freedom of Information Act searches could find them. Morens also admitted deleting his correspondence with EcoHealth Alliance, the group that funneled federal money to Wuhan virus research, specifically to dodge public transparency.

Morens’ conduct does not prove Fauci ordered the same thing. But it shows a culture inside Fauci’s circle where avoiding paper trails on gain-of-function research and pandemic origins was treated as routine, not exceptional. That context matters when weighing whether Fauci’s “please delete” instructions were casual habit or calculated evasion.

SCOOP: Emails I obtained show Fauci again asking an aide to delete an email in violation of federal law.

"PLEASE DELETE THIS EMAIL THEN DELETE FROM THE DELETED FILE," Fauci wrote.

The emails involve Fauci's infamous 2011 op-ed defending gain-of-function research despite the… pic.twitter.com/u4q0eZJUpk

— John F. Kennedy Jr (@johnfkjn) August 29, 2026

Paul has already called Fauci back to testify before his committee, arguing the new emails require a direct explanation under oath. Fauci has not offered a public rebuttal to the specific February and July 2020 messages. Until Congress gets full email headers, server logs, and testimony from Collins and Folkers on what actually happened to those messages, the public is left with a stark contradiction: written instructions to delete, next to sworn words claiming it never happened. Americans deserve a straight answer, not spin, especially on a pandemic that upended millions of lives.