The Biden administration pushed mask mandates while calling it settled science.
Chuck Grassley just got a text from Fauci's circle that proves the science told them something else.
What they said when they thought no one was watching is going to make a lot of people very angry.
Fauci's COVID Inner Circle Used Texts to Conceal Federal Records
The message came from Michael Osterholm, a member of Joe Biden's COVID-19 Advisory Board and director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.
He sent it to "Jeff, Vivek, Tony and Rochelle" – Jeff Zients, then Biden's COVID coordinator; Dr. Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General; Dr. Anthony Fauci; and CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky.
Investigative journalist Catherine Herridge posted the screenshot on August 19, 2026, after Sen. Chuck Grassley obtained it from the Department of Health and Human Services through his COVID-19 origins investigation as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
"I'm sending this via text messaging to avoid any FOIA issues."
He was trying to dodge federal open records law.
That matters because of who Osterholm is. Biden personally selected him for the COVID-19 Advisory Board in November 2020. He wasn't a bureaucrat filling a seat – he was one of thirteen experts Biden trusted to shape the federal pandemic response.
When he texted Fauci's inner circle about masks, his words carried the weight of that role.
The National Archives and Records Administration is clear on this: when government officials conduct agency business, those communications are federal records – personal accounts, third-party apps, and text messages included. Willfully concealing or destroying them carries potential criminal penalties under 18 U.S.C. Sections 641 and 2071.
Biden Advisors Knew Cloth Masks Failed and Had N95s to Prove It
The FOIA dodge wasn't the only thing buried in the message.
Osterholm told Fauci, Murthy, Walensky, and the other board members something the Biden administration never told the public: cloth masks offer almost no protection against COVID-19.
"Since April, 2020, I have been consistent in my messaging about the roles that aerosols play in transmission, and the limited benefit that cloth face coverings play in reducing risk. N-95s are necessary to be effective reducing risk with aerosol transmission."
Osterholm also told them that U.S. manufacturers already had enough N95s to supply health workers, first responders, industrial users – and the general public.
The administration that mandated masks in schools, on airplanes, and in federal buildings had an advisory board member telling them privately that cloth masks don't work and that the supply existed to put an N95 in every American's hands.
Americans got a cloth mask and a lecture about trusting the science.
Worth remembering where Fauci stands today: last month he invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times before the Senate Homeland Security Committee rather than answer questions about his pandemic conduct. His government phone is producing the answers he refused to give.
David Morens Guilty Plea Puts Osterholm Text in a New Light
This text didn't surface in isolation.
The day before Herridge published the screenshot, David Morens – a senior NIAID adviser and longtime Fauci associate – pleaded guilty in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland, to conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Court documents show Morens and his co-conspirators routed government communications through his personal Gmail account specifically to keep them out of FOIA searches. In a 2021 email entered into the record, Morens boasted that he had learned "how to make emails disappear after I am FOIA'd."
Morens faces up to five years in federal prison at his November 12 sentencing.
The Osterholm text follows the same operational logic. Different channel, same deliberate intent to keep federal communications out of public view.
Investigators now have more than 34,000 texts and 522 voicemails from Fauci's government phone, and congressional review has only just begun.
Herridge's question hangs over all of it: how widespread was this, and how many separate channels were used to avoid FOIA? At least two documented answers exist now. The real number is almost certainly higher.
The Biden COVID team built their secrecy deliberately and left the evidence on a government phone.
Sources:
- Ben Smith, "Report: Biden COVID Advisor Put His FOIA Dodge in Text Sent to Anthony Fauci," RedState, August 19, 2026.
- Kelly O. Hayes, "Former Senior NIAID Official Pleads Guilty to Charges Connected to Concealing Federal Records During COVID-19 Pandemic," U.S. Department of Justice, August 18, 2026.
- Ron Johnson and Rand Paul, "Senators Johnson, Paul Release Initial Texts from Dr. Fauci's Government iPhone," U.S. Senate, August 10, 2026.
- Catherine Herridge (@C__Herridge), exclusive screenshot post, Twitter/X, August 19, 2026.