The White House is launching a smear campaign against Dr. Fauci for contradicting Trump

Shortly after Trump was finally seen in public wearing a mask, the White House has begun provided a new document to media outlets listing all the times that Dr. Fauci has been wrong. From ABC News:

The document, obtained by ABC News from sources who confirmed the effort to discredit Fauci, says in part that "several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci has been wrong on things."

The document goes on to list examples of what the White House views as Fauci contradicting himself.

One example in the short document is a comment made by Fauci on NBC's Today Show in late February that "at this moment, there is no need to change anything that you're doing on a day-by-day basis."

However, that was not the full statement Fauci made during the interview.

"Right now the risk is still low, but this could change," Fauci also told the Today Show at the time. "When you start to see community spread, this could change and force you to become much more attentive to doing things that would protect you from spread."

To be fair, Dr. Fauci is a human, and thus, prone to flaws; his reticence to commit to facemask recommendations was certainly not a good look in hindsight. But Fauci's bipartisan track record also paints a clear portrait of someone who learns and adapts their perspectives, based on new information, and is conscientious of how to convey information to the public — an important task, given his government position. It's disheartening, but certainly not surprisingly, that the White House would fall in line to lash out at one of their own just to appease Trump's ego, even as this administration has stubbornly refused to acknowledge their own frequent public failings and false information. I'm sure it's it's only a matter of days until Fox News officially brands Fauci as a lazy bureaucrat holdover from The Swamp.

Fauci is sidelined by the White House as he steps up blunt talk on pandemic [Yasmeen Abutaleb, Josh Dawsey and Laurie McGinley / The Washington Post]

White House seeks to discredit Fauci in memo leaked to reporters [Katherine Faulders and John Santucci / ABC News]

Image: NIAID/Flickr (CC 2.0)