In March 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States’ top federal infectious disease expert, quickly became a character of contention whose audience was clearly split by political alignment. He was either known as a reliable source or a “disaster.” Much of the criticism he received was directly in line with the Trump administration’s scorn for health protocols and skepticism of safety measures like closed infrastructure and mandatory masking.
And although a majority of Americans today have been vaccinated and are ready to let all Covid-19 related news go, Fauci is once again under fire.
Through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by various news outlets, thousands of Fauci’s personal and work emails from as early as March 2020 were released to BuzzFeed and the Washington Post. Within hours of this release #FauciLeaks and #FauciGate were trending on Twitter, in an onslaught of social media conspiracy theories from Covid-19 deniers using the emails as proof that they were right all along. To be clear, no emails were leaked; they were obtained through access granted under federal law.
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