Conservatives have never been a fan of President Biden's chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci because he did not always (or ever) agree with the bewildering rants of misinformation swirling inside Trump's toilet brain.
Those trying to write their own conspiracy theories about Fauci have never had much material or ammunition to draw from, however, because Fauci is relatively transparent and socially awkward but not suspicious.
But now they have emails!
It all stemmed from a tranche of Fauci’s emails that were published as part of a Freedom of Information Act request filed by various news outlets. Within hours of publication, the hashtag #FauciLeaks was trending on Twitter, accusing the nation’s top infectious disease doctor of lying under oath about the origins of Covid. It became a trending topic on Facebook too, where detractors added an inaccurate and more nefarious framing that the emails were secretly “leaked” — drawing on a playbook that has worked for partisans on the right in the past, despite the fact that Fauci's publicly disclosed emails were not state secrets.
Reddit and Facebook lit up with a fresh round of Fauci attacks, some of which called him a war criminal. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), perhaps Fauci’s most prominent bete noire on the Hill, quickly released Facebook ads demanding to “fire Fauci” and requesting a campaign donation.
Fauci's emails do not actually contain anything scandalous, but we all know how this goes. Hillary Clinton's emails also didn't include anything incriminating. John Podesta's emails included his recipe for risotto.
This effort to discredit and smear Fauci with misinformation is not about the Biden administration or the current status of the coronavirus pandemic; it's about rewriting history to make it more favorable to Trump. They want you to think Fauci is in some way partially or even largely responsible for the Trump regime's disastrous non-response to the pandemic. They want to rehabilitate Trump's record.
Emails stolen by Russian hackers in 2016 actually were "leaked" to the public, but Fauci's emails were obtained through legitimate means and vetted before release. There's no "there," there.