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FACT BRIEF

Were Dr. Anthony Fauci's emails leaked to the public?

By Sarah Thompson
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NO

There have been several misrepresentations on social media describing the disclosure of Dr. Anthony Fauci's emails as a "leak."

The emails were not leaked.

Several media outlets, including The Washington Post, CNN and BuzzFeed News, filed Freedom of Information Act requests for Fauci's office emails.

Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and courts have held that, barring certain exemptions, a public official's email is a public document open to access.

The release of the emails to the requesting media outlets is an example of the open access to information that the FOIA is intended to guarantee. To call the emails "leaked" implies someone made them available to the public without permission of the agency or person who created the emails, who possibly wanted to keep the contents from public scrutiny.

See a full discussion of this at Lead Stories
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
Freedom Of Information Act, US Department Of Justice What is FOIA?
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Lead Stories
Lead Stories is a fact checking and debunking website at the intersection of big data and journalism that launched in 2015. It scouts for trending stories, images, videos and posts that contain false information in order to fact check them as quickly as possible. It actively monitors the fake-news ecosystem and doesn’t wait for reader tips or reports before getting started on a story.
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About fact briefs published on Gigafact
Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer “yes/no” answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact —a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all fact briefs here.