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posted: August 16, 2026
tl;dr: A thorough documentation of Anthony Fauci’s crimes and errors...
Truth is in short supply in Washington D.C., where politics reigns supreme. Whether the topic is the efficacy of community masking, the benefits of natural immunity, the huge cost of lockdowns, the downsides of vaccine mandates, or most importantly, the origin of COVID-19, Senator Rand Paul has led an often lonely fight for truth. For that he is to be commended. Deception is his story of the many COVID battles he has fought, primarily against Anthony Fauci, in the name of truth and science, and to prevent the next lab leak pandemic.
Rand Paul is one of the few members of Congress with an M.D., and was a practicing ophthalmologist (eye surgeon) before entering politics. This gave him an above-average background for understanding COVID-19 and challenging U.S. public health officials, especially NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, who seized power and made himself the public face of science while managing the pandemic response in an authoritarian fashion. Rand Paul is also one of the more liberty-minded members of Congress, which caused him to object to many of Fauci’s recommendations. But a key factor that tipped him off early that our pandemic response wasn’t following the actual science was that Rand Paul was one of the first members of Congress to get COVID-19, in March 2020, very early in the initial surge in the United States.
Rand Paul was asymptomatic, but the mandatory testing in place at the time said he had gotten the disease. After completing a two-week quarantine in isolation, Paul still found himself subjected to mask mandates and then, when the vaccine became available, pressured to get the vaccine, even though he already had the disease and therefore had some natural immunity. He was aghast when healthcare workers like himself, who already had COVID-19, were told they had to get the vaccine or be fired. Something wasn’t adding up. March 2020 also happens to be when Rand Paul claims he first met Anthony Fauci.
Rand Paul dove into all aspects of the COVID-19 topic, and quickly became one of the most knowledgeable people in Congress on the disease, the origin of it, and the response to it. In Deception Rand Paul details the primary reasons that many people (like myself) who are not gain-of-function virologists believe the SARS-CoV-2 virus almost certainly leaked from a lab. There are other books that cover the origin of COVID-19 in greater depth. The unique twist that Rand Paul brings to the topic is that, as a legislator, he also provides several possible ways to prevent this from happening in the future. One of Rand Paul’s proposals is to split Fauci’s job into three, with term limits and Senate confirmation.
Rand Paul started challenging Fauci early in the pandemic. He got into a tussle with Fauci over school closures in September 2020, with Rand Paul showing data about schools in Europe which were open (a topic covered at length in David Zweig’s An Abundance of Caution) and Fauci claiming that we could not compare the U.S. to Sweden. Rand Paul kept digging, and grew into Fauci’s greatest critic and adversary on Capitol Hill. Rand Paul also battled Fauci on social media censorship (Rand Paul was kicked off YouTube for a mask video), vaccine mandates (Rand Paul wanted to vaccinate just the vulnerable), business closures, and the harm done to children, the economy, and the federal budget deficit. But the chief battle between Rand Paul and Fauci concerned Fauci’s funding of research projects in China that made viruses more deadly to humans, and the role that almost certainly played in causing the COVID-19 pandemic.
Deception was written and published before Fauci was given his autopen pardon by the Biden administration, covering all federal crimes committed by Fauci from January 2014 to January 19, 2025. So it doesn’t cover Rand Paul’s recent actions against Fauci, such as Fauci’s subpoenaed testimony on July 29, 2026 at the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, in which Fauci answered every question by pleading the Fifth Amendment, even when asked the color of his tie. The pardon should have allowed Fauci to answer questions concerning that time period without fear of criminal prosecution, as long as Fauci told the truth. But that would have meant walking back the many lies he had told previously, so Fauci remained mute. This was, needless to say, not a good look for Fauci in the court of public opinion.
Fauci still has his supporters, probably numerous enough and in the right positions to keep him out of jail, but they are dwindling in number and enthusiasm. Rand Paul, in my view, has triumphed. Anthony Fauci ended up like O.J. Simpson: nearly everyone knows what he did, yet he will probably avoid prison for it. Fauci will likely spend the rest of his years fighting off various legal challenges and paying high-priced defense attorneys. Perhaps someday, after Fauci is dead, Rand Paul will produce a second edition of Deception to cover the entire Fauci saga. In the meantime, the current edition is worth reading if you want to know more about how and why Rand Paul focused on Anthony Fauci and held him to account.