A U.S. Senate subcommittee investigating former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci has obtained the government-issued iPhone he used during his tenure, potentially opening a new avenue for investigators examining his role in the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the phone was obtained from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), while Senator Ron Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, confirmed the development on Wednesday.
Johnson said investigators hoped the device would provide answers to questions Fauci declined to address during a contentious congressional hearing last week.
“Hopefully, this device will address many of the questions he refused to answer at last week’s hearing,” Johnson said in a post on X.
Fauci appeared before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs last week as part of the congressional inquiry into his handling of the pandemic response.
During the hearing, Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment rights more than 100 times, declining to answer questions from lawmakers.
The committee subsequently voted along party lines to hold him in contempt of Congress and refer the matter to the U.S. Department of Justice for possible prosecution over his refusal to provide answers.
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Johnson said the contempt proceedings represented only the beginning of his investigation.
“My investigation has just begun,” he said, indicating that lawmakers intended to pursue additional records and evidence concerning Fauci’s conduct during the pandemic.
Phone returned after Fauci’s retirement
According to the Wall Street Journal, a person familiar with the matter said Fauci surrendered the government phone when he retired in 2022, in line with standard federal procedures requiring departing officials to return government-owned devices.
Johnson’s office said Fauci used the phone while serving as NIAID director. During that period, he also served on the White House COVID-19 Response Team and as chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden.
Fauci was a prominent figure in the U.S. government’s pandemic response under both Presidents Donald Trump and Biden.
Investigators are expected to examine the device for communications and other information relevant to their inquiry, although it remains unclear what material the phone contains or whether it will produce evidence supporting any allegations against Fauci.
Investigation widens beyond phone
The phone is reportedly only one part of a growing body of material obtained by congressional investigators.
Senators Johnson and Rand Paul have received millions of Fauci-related documents from government servers, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Paul, a Republican senator from Kentucky and longtime critic of Fauci’s pandemic policies, also recently released excerpts from Fauci’s personal diary covering the period from December 2019 through the end of 2022.
The entries reportedly provide an account of Fauci’s observations and activities during the emergence of COVID-19, the government’s response, debates over the virus’s origins and his experience as a central public face of the pandemic response.
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Wuhan research and COVID-19 origins under scrutiny
A major area of congressional scrutiny concerns U.S. government funding for research involving the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
Critics of Fauci have alleged that NIAID-funded research conducted through outside organisations involved experiments that could qualify as gain-of-function research. Fauci has previously denied that the U.S. government funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan institute in the manner alleged by his critics.
Documents released through Freedom of Information Act requests and congressional investigations have fueled continued debate over the origins of COVID-19, the nature of research conducted in Wuhan and the extent of U.S. involvement.
Investigators have also questioned communications surrounding competing theories about whether the virus emerged naturally or resulted from a laboratory-related incident.
Those questions remain politically and scientifically contentious, and obtaining Fauci’s government phone does not by itself establish wrongdoing or determine the origins of the pandemic.
Fauci retired from government service in 2022. In January 2025, then-President Biden issued him a broad pardon covering potential federal offenses committed between January 1, 2014, and the date of the pardon.