Stop me if you've heard this one before. How can you tell if Anthony Fauci is lying? His lips are moving. (Insert rim-shot sound effect here.) As you may recall, the sainted Dr. Fauci was dragged into Congress again last month to provide testimony, this time about his use of private email accounts when conducting official government business. Past controversies were brought up at the time, including what came to be known as "Beaglegate," involving his work at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. During his testimony, Fauci insisted that the claims that he conducted any type of official business using his Gmail account were simply unfounded and he had no clue where such rumors may have started. But newly released FOIA records show Fauci responding to a query from a journalist in 2021 saying that he would "reach out" to them through his private email address. Can all of these claims be simultaneously true? Because it doesn't seem as if they could. (NY Post)

A watchdog group is accusing Dr. Anthony Fauci of having lied to Congress last month when he claimed he never used private email to conduct official business, pointing to newly obtained records on the “Beaglegate” scandal – though his attorney has denied all wrongdoing.

Fauci, 83, told a journalist in October 2021 that he would reach out to them through his private email address during a public-relations firestorm over research being conducted on beagle puppies by his National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the White Coat Waste Project, citing FOIA records exclusively shared with The Post.

The controversial agency-funded research included the tormenting and killing of beagle puppies in Tunisia to learn more about a parasitic disease.

There are now and have been for some time strict rules against using personal email accounts or other forms of digital communication when conducting official government business. This is important in terms of ensuring transparency wherever possible and maintaining accurate records for the archives. And yet we're seeing more and more public officials who don't seem to be following those rules. That's a significant problem because it is so difficult to know if anyone is doing it until somebody blows the whistle on them.

In Fauci's case, the people he worked the most closely with in various endeavors have repeatedly shown that Fauci was "smart enough" not to use his official work email account for anything that might be "problematic." Now we have this exchange with a journalist that took place relatively recently. It all just seems so obvious. If you're already in the middle of an exchange of emails with someone and the conversation has anything at all to do with your official duties, why would you respond to a question by saying you will reach out to them separately using your private email account? If there's a reason other than attempting to hide what you've been doing, I certainly can't think of one.

For his part, Fauci's attorney is still insisting that this was all a big misunderstanding. He claimed that the reporter's question dealt with "a personal matter and not a matter related to government business." Even if that were true, why would the matter need to be taken away from his government account? Further, the subject line of the email deals with "1980s HIV clinical trials." How would that not be related to his official duties? Was he studying the HIV virus in his basement in his spare time as a hobby? None of this makes any sense.

Fauci has been caught lying about gain-of-function experiments in Wuhan and the beagle torture experiments in Tunisia. God only knows what else he's been lying about. Why would we expect him to suddenly be telling the truth about his private email account usage? It seems to me that the burden of proof lies on Anthony Fauci's shoulders at this point, not the people investigating his record. And if he's been lying under oath to Congress, it seems to me that I recall some other people going to jail for that recently. (Not that anyone in this administration would ever actually prosecute Fauci.)