Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-KY) released 1,375 pages of records Friday detailing Bill Gates' unusual access to some of the most powerful figures and institutions inside the federal government.
The documents confirm Gates held a Department of Energy (DOE) "Q" security clearance for more than seven years. They also show Anthony Fauci editing Gates' pandemic book, then-National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins privately questioning whether Gates was "going rogue," and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) giving the Gates Foundation a private briefing on military biological research programs.
Read More: Rand Paul's Damning Fauci Revelation That Everybody Missed
A June 30 letter from DOE to Paul confirmed the clearance "was reciprocally granted on June 11, 2014, and subsequently terminated on December 6, 2021," meaning it was based on a clearance originally issued by another, unnamed federal agency. DOE describes a Q authorization as comparable to a Top Secret clearance, permitting access to Restricted Data and certain categories of special nuclear material. The letter does not explain why Gates needed the authorization, and it asked the committee to keep the information confidential and "not for public release.”
Gates' access to Fauci was considerably more personal. In April 2020, he sent Fauci his "Pandemic Innovation" memo for review before it went to the World Health Organization (WHO) and policymakers. In January 2022, he sent Fauci a prepublication draft of "How to Prevent the Next Pandemic," asking specifically for his thoughts on Chapter 9, his proposed plan for the world. Paul put it plainly: Gates had a private editor inside NIH.
With the help of David Morens, Anthony Fauci served as Bill Gates's private editor.
— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) July 31, 2026
In April 2020, Gates asked Fauci for feedback on his memo "Pandemic I: The First Modern Pandemic." In January 2022, Gates asked Fauci to edit his book before it went to the publisher.
Fauci returned the manuscript five days later with tracked edits, and disclosed he had quietly passed the full book to NIH colleague David Morens.
"I gave the manuscript in close confidence to a trusted colleague who destroyed it after reading it. His name is Dr. David Morens and he has read the entire book and provided comments on every chapter."
Fauci praised the book's "crisp and clear messages" and attached both his edits and Morens' chapter-by-chapter notes.
The documents also capture NIH Dir. Collins' frustration with Gates in May 2018. After Gates met with President Trump and publicly promoted additional spending on a universal flu vaccine, including a $12 million personal commitment, Collins wrote Fauci questioning whether Gates was acting unilaterally.
Fauci returned tracked changes, then wrote:
— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) July 31, 2026
"I gave the manuscript in close confidence to a trusted colleague who destroyed it after reading it. His name is Dr. David Morens." pic.twitter.com/9JVFBuxhJq
"Surely he knows about all the work that NIH has been doing? And how could his promised $12M add much to the much larger investment NIAID is making? Is this coordinated in some way, or is Bill going rogue?"
Collins added that Gates had apparently told Trump the country needed between $5 billion and $6 billion to prepare for a global flu pandemic. Fauci replied that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) already had $104 million in its budget for a universal flu vaccine and could absorb between $150 million and $200 million annually.
Around the same time, Collins sent NIH officials an urgent request for a full accounting of the agency's financial ties to the Gates Foundation. "For reasons I can't currently explain," he wrote. The answers revealed a sprawling relationship: joint vaccine studies, Gates Foundation funding for NIH components, and parallel investments around NIH-Gates working groups. One official acknowledged some of the funding was "not easily sourced.”
The final pages document another door open to the foundation. On May 3, 2022, DARPA's Biological Technologies Office convened a 90-minute session at agency headquarters for Gates Foundation representatives, covering four military biological threat programs: INTERCEPT, PREEMPT, Friend or Foe, and ReVector.
PREEMPT's stated aim is "targeting viruses in animals before they emerge in humans." Its projects include bat sampling across four countries and a transmissible Lassa vaccine "with internal off switch," listed for potential deployment in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and other West…
— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) July 31, 2026
"PREEMPT's stated aim is targeting viruses in animals before they emerge in humans," Sen. Paul wrote. Its slides included work on transmissible vaccines for Lassa and Ebola, and the final page said researchers had generated a scalable transmissible Lassa vaccine with an internal "off switch," listed for potential deployment in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and other West African countries.
The documents don't establish that Gates used one channel to obtain the others, and the DARPA Lassa slide was marked approved for public release.
Collins later made his priorities clear. Days after announcing his resignation in October 2021, he wrote Melinda French Gates: "It has been a privilege to work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation over these 12 years, and I am glad to have had the chance to bring our global health efforts even closer together than ever."
No private citizen should have that kind of reach into the federal government. Paul's document release ensures someone will have to explain how it happened.
Editor's Note: Do you enjoy RedState's conservative reporting that takes on the radical Left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join RedState VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member