Dr. Anthony Fauci had dinner at CNN anchor Jake Tapper's Washington, D.C. home in July 2020. He wrote about it in his personal diary. "Terrific couple," he gushed. "Friendship building."

The man running America's pandemic response was journaling about his social calendar like a freshman rushing a sorority.

Sen. Rand Paul, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released 1,141 pages of Fauci's personal diary entries on Saturday — spanning December 2019 through December 2022.

The entries paint a picture of a government scientist who was far more embedded with the media establishment than anyone publicly acknowledged. Tapper appears 41 times across the diary. Not as a journalist covering Fauci. As a friend.

On April 13, 2020 — three weeks into lockdowns — Fauci wrote about his upcoming interview with the CNN host, "Jake wanted to make sure the interview did not cause me any problems." A CNN anchor checking with a government official to make sure his own network's coverage didn't get the official in trouble. That's not journalism. That's concierge service.

By October 23, 2020 — eleven days before the presidential election — the relationship had progressed to private dinners. "Had dinner at my home with Jake and Jennifer Tapper," Fauci wrote. "Relaxed, good time. Jake clearly believes that Trump is totally nuts."

A sitting journalist sharing his political views about the sitting president over dinner with the government's top health official. Who then wrote it down.

It wasn't just Tapper. Fauci rubbed elbows with A LOT of "journalists, you know the people who are supposed to be our checks and balances on our elected officials. CNN's Dana Bash texted Fauci after his heated exchange with Rep. Jim Jordan during a House hearing in April 2021. "I just watched the whole Jordan thing. Again, you're a better man than I," Bash wrote, adding that "our friend Wolf Blitzer said to me yesterday — no one would have blamed you if you said simply 'Mr. Jordan, go f--- yourself.'"

Fauci also gave Tapper questions to ask another government official. In July 2020, he wrote that he "gave Jake some questions to ask" pediatrician Brett Giroir on CNN's "State of the Union." The nation's top infectious disease doctor was scripting interview questions for a supposedly independent news anchor.

NBC's Chuck Todd, ABC's George Stephanopoulos, and NBC's Andrea Mitchell also appear in the entries — texts, calls, prepped interviews. Stephanopoulos texted Fauci after a "Good Morning America" appearance: "Thank you, Tony. So impressive." Andrea Mitchell called on July 4, 2020, apologetically, about TV exposure concerns.

Then there's BlazeTV host Steve Deace. Fauci apparently lashed out in the diary at Deace and co-author Todd Erzen over their book "Faucian Bargain," dismissing it as conspiracy theory — while admitting he never actually read it. Deace's response was pitch-perfect: "This is quite possibly the greatest compliment of my entire career I will ever receive, to have annoyed the demonic little elf himself." He added: "Notice he never disputes anything we wrote. The bestselling book has more footnotes than pages, and it's all been proven true."

The lab-leak entries are just as revealing. On January 26, 2020, Fauci wrote that "the first infection was in early December and was not connected to the market" and acknowledged "the market was not the source, it was the amplifier." By February 1, 2020, he noted that of twelve scientists on a conference call about COVID origins, only two supported natural origin, with others believing "deliberate insertion was possible."

That was February 2020. The public spent the next two years being told the lab-leak theory was misinformation.

By August 24, 2021, Fauci was writing off congressional inquiries into the origins question as "more conspiracy theory like letters" and "an amazing and unbelievable waste of our time." Elected officials asking where a virus came from — a virus that killed over a million Americans — and the man with the answers considered it a nuisance.

Fauci didn't just coordinate with the media. He lived inside it. The diary reads like a man who confused being on television with doing his job, who treated journalists as allies and elected oversight as harassment, and who wrote it all down because he genuinely didn't think anyone would ever read it.