Dr. Anthony Fauci used Twitter to disseminate the government’s official COVID-19 and vaccine narratives, despite testifying under oath that he had never used the social media platform, according to the latest “Twitter files,” released by investigative journalist Paul D. Thacker.
Titled the “Fauci Pharma Files,” the documents also revealed that Twitter partnered with pharmaceutical companies and pharmacy chains to promote COVID-19 vaccines on the social media platform.
At a deposition in November 2022, as part of Missouri v. Biden, a lawsuit against the Biden administration, Fauci testified under oath that he had never used Twitter — a claim he has since repeated in the media.
The lawsuit, filed May 5, 2022, by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana and several medical experts, nonprofit groups and publications, alleges government officials colluded with and coerced social media platforms to “suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints and content” related to COVID-19.
In addition to Thacker’s revelations, which he posted Thursday on Substack, journalist Lee Fang — also on Thursday — revealed an April 13 letter from Rep. Stacey E. Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands), ranking member of the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, in which Plaskett threatened another “Twitter files” journalist — Matt Taibbi — alleging Taibbi had lied under oath during his recent testimony before the subcommittee.
Fauci ‘lies all the time’
During Fauci’s sworn deposition Nov. 23, 2022, the retired director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was asked if he ever had “any communications with anybody removing speech about the lab leak theory of the origins of the COVID from social media platforms.”
In his response, Fauci stated, “I don’t have an account. I don’t tweet. I don’t pay attention to social media. I wouldn’t know how to access a tweet if you paid me.”
Thacker noted that Fauci made similar claims several times during his seven-hour deposition.
In exclusive remarks shared with The Defender, Thacker said he first noticed the discrepancy between Fauci’s testimony and public pronouncements and his actual involvement on Twitter while reviewing internal monthly reports from Twitter.
One report showed that Fauci had taken over the White House’s official COVID-19 Twitter account on multiple occasions.
3) Fauci made similar claims, during multiple exchanges, in a 7-hour deposition, where he denied using Twitter or even knowing how to access a tweet. pic.twitter.com/SdWEp9dIYV
— Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) April 20, 2023
In subsequent media appearances, Fauci again claimed he never used Twitter. This included a Jan. 13 appearance on Fox News, where he said:
“A lot of people are spouting out a lot of things about me and Twitter. I’ve never had a Twitter account. I don’t intend on having a Twitter account, and I’ve had nothing to do with Twitter. So, I don’t know what they’re talking about when they say that.”
During the same Fox News interview, Fauci responded to tweets by Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk.
In a Dec. 11, 2022, tweet, Musk said his “pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” and on Dec. 18, 2022, Musk tweeted “The tide is turning fast for the Faucists.”
My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 11, 2022
On Dec. 12, 2022, Musk tweeted: “As for Fauci, he lied to Congress and funded gain-of-function research that killed millions of people. Not awesome imo” (in my opinion).
On Dec. 14, 2022, in response to a tweet by user @Hodgetwins: “You found messages between Twitter execs and our govt. (Fauci and team) pushing for censorship of anyone that didn’t go along with their narrative on COVID?,” Musk tweeted a trophy emoji.
In a Dec. 18 Twitter exchange between Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., founder and chairman on leave for Children’s Health Defense, Kennedy wrote: “Fauci purchased omertà [a code of silence] among virologists globally with a total of $37 billion in annual payoffs in research grants. With the paymaster gone, the orthodoxies will unravel.”
Musk responded with a one-word answer: “Precisely.”
Fauci purchased omertà among virologists globally with a total of $37 billion in annual payoffs in research grants. With the paymaster gone, the orthodoxies will unravel.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) December 18, 2022
And on Jan. 1, Musk tweeted that 2023 “won’t be boring,” and responded to author Juanita Broaddrick’s “waiting … for #FauciFiles” comment with: “Later this week.”
In response to these tweets, Fauci told Fox News:
“I have no idea what he’s talking about … I wish I did. I’m clueless about what he’s referring to.
“I just don’t understand what he’s doing. And I don’t think I should be addressing it because it’s a bit puzzling to me.”
However, according to Thacker, internal Twitter documents reveal that Fauci not only was familiar with Twitter, but he was actively involved in the dissemination of establishment narratives about COVID-19 vaccines.
An internal Twitter report from March 2021 stated that “Dr. Anthony Fauci did an account takeover for [the account] @WHCOVIDresponse.”
Thacker also revealed an April 2021 tweet by the @WHCOVIDresponse [White House COVID response] account stating that “Dr. Fauci will take over this account,” enabling the public to “Hear directly from our public health experts as they take to Twitter to answer questions about COVID-19 and the vaccines.”
Hear directly from our public health experts as they take to Twitter to answer questions about COVID-19 and the vaccines. Dr. Fauci will take over this account, joining @Surgeon_General, @NIHDirector, @DrNunezSmith46, and @CDCDirector to share answers. Reply with your questions. pic.twitter.com/4K0Mq3Hm0c
— White House COVID-19 Response Team (@WHCOVIDResponse) April 19, 2021
Thacker told The Defender that individuals he spoke to while investigating this story said that Fauci’s repeated denials of never having used Twitter or any other social media platform led them to expect him to claim that he doesn’t even have a computer.
According to Thacker, such statements are the norm — not the exception — for Fauci. He told The Defender:
“I think the guy just lies all the time. He lied about gain-of-function research … about funding this gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“I don’t know why he does this, but from people I’ve spoken to, I’ve been told this is just what he does: He lies.
“For most of his career, he’s been this very well-known scientist, but not on a global public stage where he’s being looked at from all directions. Now that he’s being looked at, people have begun to notice that he says things that don’t add up.”
Writing on Substack, Thacker quoted Martin Kulldorff, Ph.D., a professor of medicine (on leave) from Harvard University, who is one of the plaintiffs in the Missouri v. Biden lawsuit. Kulldorff said Fauci is “involved even if he doesn’t write the tweets.”
“To me that’s explosive, and it seems he lied under oath,” added Kuldorff.
In statements delivered on Feb. 28 to the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Kulldorff characterized the set of public health responses to COVID-19 as the “worst public health mistakes in history.”
In his Substack post, Thacker referred to several other instances where Fauci may have lied. As Thacker wrote, there were other instances of Fauci “fibbing and flailing” during his November 2022 deposition:
“At one point, Fauci is asked if he knows Stanford professor John Ioannides, who is one of the most heavily cited and widely renowned physicians in the field of evidence-based medicine.
“Nonetheless, Fauci denied knowing Ioannides.”
John Ioannidis, M.D., D.Sc., (also spelled Ioannides) has been an outspoken critic of the public health measures implemented in response to COVID-19. As early as March 17, 2020, Ioannidis described this response as “a fiasco in the making.”
During his deposition, Fauci said “I’ve heard of him. I don’t know him. I’ve heard the name Ioannides, but I don’t know him.”
Thacker spoke to Ioannidis, who said that he previously worked with Fauci.
“I was a Medical Officer at the HIV Research Branch at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 2 years in 1996-1998,” Ioannidis told Thacker. “Tony Fauci was my director, so I would think he knows me pretty well.”
Thacker added that “emails released by Buzzfeed confirm that Fauci knows his former employee, Ioannidis.” In an April 18, 2020, email to Dr. Stephen Hahn, on which other public health officials, including Dr. Deborah Birx, were copied, Fauci wrote: “John Ioannides is the one most of us know … He is the person one of your people could reach out to.”
Hahn served as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) commissioner of food and drugs between Dec. 17, 2019, and Jan. 20, 2021.
In another example highlighted by Thacker, Fauci was asked “multiple questions” during his deposition “about a 2020 study that Nature Medicine published and that downplayed the possibility that the pandemic started from a lab in Wuhan,” a study which, according to Thacker, Fauci “helped orchestrate.”
During his deposition and on other occasions, Fauci said he remembered “reading” the Nature paper. According to Thacker though, Fauci, “no longer under oath,” told The New York Times in late March that he was not sure if he ever got around to reading the paper.
Despite these examples, Fauci continues to enjoy the unwavering support of many loyal “supporters,” according to Thacker, who do not question any of Fauci’s actions or statements.
“These supporters fawn over him and don’t care if he tells the truth, no matter what he does … He could walk through the quad of any major research university and shoot someone and no one would care,” Thacker said.
Thacker’s revelations about Fauci are likely to have implications for the ongoing Missouri v. Biden lawsuit. Writing on Substack, Thacker stated:
“Because they remain in litigation, the state of Louisiana did not return a request for comment, but several people involved in the lawsuit explained that Fauci’s takeover of the White House Twitter account adds further evidence that he did not tell the truth under oath.
“In a statement of fact that the states filed in court, they write that Fauci’s testimony ‘contradicts the documentary evidence, including his own contemporaneous emails, on approximately 37 points’ … This would be point 38, I was told.”
The Louisiana Attorney General’s office did not immediately respond to a request from The Defender for comment.
Thacker told The Defender, “There’s more stories coming … I have a lot more documents to go through,” adding that many journalists who ignored the “Twitter files” or have been “attacking the reporters” who have released these documents “were the favored reporters of Twitter, and there’s emails on that.”
Fauci ‘beloved by Twitter 1.0’
As part of Thursday’s “Twitter files” release, Thacker stated that “Fauci was beloved by Twitter 1.0,” referring to Twitter prior to its purchase by Musk.
Previously, on Dec. 28, 2022, Musk revealed that a “Fauci Fan Club” existed on one of Twitter’s internal Slack communication channels.
Twitter’s then-support for Fauci did not stop there though, according to Thacker. In a Feb. 28, 2021, email Twitter attorney Angela Sherrer heaped praise upon Fauci, describing him as “the leading trusted voice about the COVID-19 response in the United States.”
Thacker stated that Sherrer “was no small fry at Twitter.” Referencing testimony provided by San Francisco-based FBI Supervisory Special Agent Elvis Chan in a Nov. 29, 2022, deposition as part of the Missouri v. Biden lawsuit, Sherrer was one of the attorneys involved with combating alleged “disinformation.”
On Substack, Thacker referred to an online biography that “describes Sherrer as playing a key role in requests for content removal and enforcement of Twitter rules.”
Sherrer has since left Twitter, departing as Musk was completing his takeover of the platform.
Chan is one of the defendants named in the Missouri v. Biden lawsuit. Previous “Twitter files” releases showed that Chan actively communicated with Twitter and other social media platforms as part of efforts to police alleged “disinformation” and “misinformation.”
In his deposition, Chan testified that one of the Twitter attorneys he met with regarding such topics was Sherrer.
Twitter partnered with pharma, pharmacy chains while censoring criticism of them
Thursday’s “Twitter files” also revealed that Twitter partnered with Big Pharma and prominent pharmacy chains to “shape vaccine marketing campaigns.”
10) In December 2020, Twitter announced they would begin removing and labelling tweets that contained vaccine “misinformation” especially concerning COVID-19 vaccines. pic.twitter.com/jmZTca5CUJ
— Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) April 20, 2023
Thacker referred to a Dec. 16, 2020, policy announced by Twitter regarding its “approach to misleading vaccine information,” in which the platform stated it would label and/or remove tweets containing “misinformation” about vaccines — and the COVID-19 vaccines in particular.
Internal Twitter documents revealed by Thacker showed that “During that same time frame, Twitter began working with Johnson & Johnson (J&J) on a COVID-19 vaccine ‘marketing strategy’ and with CVS pharmacy to promote approved narratives.”
Among other things, the documents showed that Twitter was “making updates” to its “COVID-19 Hub.” As part of this, Twitter “Pitched CVS on tactics to expand distribution of upcoming #OneStepCloser vaccination campaign,” and was “Awaiting more details from Johnson & Johnson’s messaging strategy following the approval of their vaccine.”
Such efforts were not limited to COVID-19 vaccines. “By the summer of 2021,” Thacker wrote, “Johnson & Johnson began a full court press to market a ton of their products on Twitter, including a controversial antidepressant.”
Here, Thacker was referring to Spravato, the company’s esketamine-based nasal spray, that was rejected by U.K. regulators. Spravato generated controversy both due to its cost and its adverse event profile, with 30% of patients reporting a “negative experience” after using the drug.
These partnerships resulted in a potential conflict of interest for Twitter executives, according to Thacker. He told The Defender that while Twitter was cultivating such partnerships, it was “simultaneously censoring and labeling tweets about vaccines.” Thacker added:
“You’re serving as propaganda for a vaccine company but then pretending that you’re also calling balls and strikes on vaccine information. That’s impossible, and I think what they were doing is, they were pretending that they were policing vaccine misinformation, but who they were really policing were the critics of their Pharma clients.
“I’m looking to see if any of these Twitter people, if they testified before Congress and disclosed the vaccine manufacturers were their clients. I’ve not seen it reported anywhere … How big of a client was Johnson & Johnson for Twitter? I don’t know.”
Kulldorff told Thacker, “Twitter promoted information that was false, and they censored information that was true. And it’s strange that they work with J&J to devise a marketing strategy.”
“Twitter should be a place for people to exchange ideas without censoring,” Kulldorff said.
In a tweet earlier today, Thacker referred to Twitter’s former head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth, questioning whether his compensation package was tied to Twitter’s profitability, which may have “incentivise[d] him to censor complaints about pharma.”
Thacker will participate in a live Twitter Spaces discussion about the latest “Twitter files” release, today at 4 p.m. Eastern time.
Congress member threatens ‘Twitter files’ journalist with imprisonment
Documents released Thursday in parallel with Thacker’s revelations showed that Plaskett threatened Taibbi with imprisonment in a letter she sent Taibbi on April 13.
Taibbi testified before Plaskett and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on March 9, claiming then that Twitter and other social media platforms, along with federal government agencies, operated as a “censorship-industrial complex.”
The letter, released by Fang, who also has participated in the release of previous “Twitter files,” alleged that Taibbi was inaccurate.
According to Fang:
“The Plaskett letter claimed that Taibbi ‘intentionally’ provided false information during his testimony and mentioned the potential consequences of such actions, stating that ‘providing false information is punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment.”
The “false information” in question was a mistake that Taibbi made in a tweet, as part of a previous “Twitter files” release, mistakenly referring to CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, as CIS — an acronym which refers to the Center for Internet Security.
This claim against Taibbi was originally made on April 7 by Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet Observatory — which operated the Virality Project, the subject of one of Taibbi’s “Twitter files” releases. Stamos is a “cybersecurity expert” who once served as Facebook’s chief security officer.
Stamos’ claim was then amplified by MSNBC personality Mehdi Hasan that same day — and cited by Plaskett in her letter.
My last word on the CISA/CIS: @mtaibbi suggesting a nonprofit was an intel agency to try & prove government collusion/censorship wasn’t just a typo or ‘minor error’. He said it to Congress *under oath*. It was key to his thesis. Will he be asking Jim Jordan to correct the record? https://t.co/Wh3kUsmCmL pic.twitter.com/CUggTGWjq6
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) April 7, 2023
However, as noted by Fang, this mistake was only made by Taibbi in a tweet — which has since been corrected — but not in Taibbi’s House testimony.
During the March 9 hearing, Plaskett demanded that Taibbi reveal his “Twitter files” sources and referred to him as a “so-called journalist.”
Throughout the hearing where Taibbi testified, almost every Democrat on the Committee — including @StaceyPlaskett — explicitly defended the CIA/DHS/FBI censorship regime on the ground that it keeps us safe.
Now she’s threatening him with prison after he reported on it: https://t.co/uOCDTs0xfz
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 20, 2023
The Virality Project worked with social media platforms, federal agencies and members of the Biden administration to target alleged “misinformation” and “disinformation” regarding the COVID-19 vaccines on social media, including content acknowledged as being true.
In a paper, the Virality Project also championed the formation of a government “disinformation board” — just one day before the Biden administration and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the creation of its Disinformation Governance Board.
5.Just before @ShellenbergerMD and I testified in the House last week, Virality Project emails were found in the #TwitterFiles describing “stories of true vaccine side effects” as actionable content. pic.twitter.com/dKxTnxDc3a
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
In an op-ed published in The Hill on Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) described the collaboration of DHS with agencies such as CISA, and their actions to police content on social media, as an “abuse of power” that “should terrify all of us.”
Arguing that “the full extent of DHS’s abuse of its power against its own citizens is still largely unknown,” Paul said that in 2021, for instance, DHS produced a video encouraging people to “report their own family members to Facebook for ‘disinformation’ if they challenge U.S. government narratives on COVID-19.”
Paul added that DHS, along with CISA, sought to use nonprofit non-governmental organizations as a “clearing house for information to avoid the appearance of government propaganda.”
Paul also referred to a recent report by the Brennan Center for Justice identifying “at least 12 overlapping DHS programs for tracking what Americans are saying online,” while a November 2022 report by the American Civil Liberties Union said, “it’s past time to seriously reconsider DHS” and its “abusive practices.”
Major media outlets exit Twitter while prominent accounts lose verified status
In recent days, prominent personalities have lost their “verified” status — indicated by a blue checkmark — on Twitter, due to an apparent unwillingness to pay an $8 monthly subscription to the platform to retain this privilege, and as a likely sign of opposition to Musk’s policies on the platform.
Such personalities include Hillary Clinton, Pope Francis, Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum.
These individuals had “legacy” verified status, issued under previous Twitter rules which were in place before Musk purchased the platform.
Other prominent entities have voluntarily chosen to leave Twitter altogether — namely National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS).
NPR and PBS objected to their accounts being “falsely” labeled by Twitter as “state-affiliated media,” with NPR announcing its departure on April 12 and PBS following the next day.
Of the $319 million Bill Gates gave to media outlets by November 2021,NPR received $24,663,000 and PBS got at least $4 million. In return those “public interest”broadcasters aired flattering reports on Gates’s corrupt self dealing and profiteering on his global vaccine projects…
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) April 13, 2023
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation “paused” its Twitter activity Monday for similar reasons.
In an April 12 tweet, Musk referred to NPR as “hypocrites,” stating that, according to the broadcaster’s own website, they were, in part, federally funded.
**Source: Fauci Lied Under Oath, Latest ‘Twitter Files’ Suggest • Children’s Health Defense