Fauci: Emails highlight confusion about Trump administration’s mixed messages early in pandemic 

The Washington Post got its hands on some of Anthony Fauci’s early pandemic emails through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Fauci said the emails obtained by the Post reflected “mixed messages that were coming out of the White House” from a host of people who flooded his inbox in the early months of the pandemic.

The Post obtained 866 pages of Fauci’s emails, from March and April 2020, during the first two hectic months after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic and global restrictions on public gatherings shut down much of the world.

Fauci said he was “getting every single kind of question” at the time because people were confused about the “mixed messages” coming out of the White House and wanted to know “the real scoop.”

“I was getting every single kind of question, mostly people who were a little bit confused about the mixed messages that were coming out of the White House and wanted to know what’s the real scoop,” Fauci told the Post in an interview about the emails the newspaper obtained.

“I have a reputation that I respond to people when they ask for help, even if it takes a long time. And it’s very time consuming, but I do,” he added.

The correspondence opens a new window into what it was like for the nation’s top infectious diseases expert to navigate some of the most panic-stricken early weeks of the pandemic.

But: The Post notes that the emails do not show Fauci directly criticizing former President Trump and instead staying in close contact with White House officials.