Sen. Ron Johnson obtained Dr. Anthony Fauci's government phone from the Department of Health and Human Services. It contained more than 34,000 text messages and 522 voicemails. The first batch, released today by Johnson and Sen. Rand Paul, includes a text chain between Fauci, former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, and former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy discussing COVID-19 vaccine risks during pregnancy.

One of the topics Fauci addressed: a "theoretical" association between certain symptoms and first-trimester miscarriages.

That word — "theoretical" — is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Fauci and the nation's two other top public health officials were privately discussing whether evidence favored receiving a COVID-19 vaccine early or late into a pregnancy. They were texting about the connection between the shots and miscarriages. And the public was told the vaccines were safe for pregnant women, full stop, no asterisks, no caveats.

The text chain also reveals the group discussing how to dispel "misperceptions" that mRNA vaccines could "get into your genes." That framing is worth sitting with. The head of NIAID, the CDC director, and the Surgeon General weren't debating whether the concern had merit. They were strategizing how to make it go away. The word they chose — "misperceptions" — tells you everything about how they viewed anyone who asked questions.

Johnson's office said the messages could have "an immediate impact of public health and the principle of informed consent." That's a diplomatic way of saying the people who were supposed to inform us were busy managing us instead.

Johnson plans to release more messages in the future. The first batch came with a redacted PDF of the actual texts. Thirty-four thousand messages and 522 voicemails sit on that phone. What was released today is a sliver.

But even the sliver is damning. We spent three years being told that vaccine hesitancy was a moral failing. Pregnant women were pushed to get jabbed by their OBs, by hospital systems, by public health campaigns funded with tax dollars. The message was unanimous and aggressive: safe and effective, no exceptions. Meanwhile, the three officials most responsible for that message were privately texting about a "theoretical" link to miscarriages and brainstorming how to neutralize concerns about mRNA technology interacting with human genetics.

The usual defense will arrive on schedule. Context. Nuance. The texts were about dispelling misinformation, not hiding information. Science evolves. They were doing their best with what they knew.

Except they knew enough to text each other about it. They knew enough to discuss timing — early versus late pregnancy — which only matters if you believe the timing of the shot carries different risks. That's not "misinformation." That's a clinical question they were asking privately while publicly insisting the answer didn't matter.

Informed consent means telling people what you know so they can decide for themselves. It doesn't mean deciding what people can handle and feeding them the version you think they need. Fauci, Walensky, and Murthy had information relevant to pregnant women's health decisions. They discussed it among themselves. The public got "safe and effective."

Thirty-four thousand messages. Five hundred twenty-two voicemails. Fauci's phone had a lot to say. Apparently more than its owner ever told us.