Woke' Smithsonian exhibit lionizes embattled Fauci amid conservative scrutiny of museum's messaging

The embattled former face of the United States' COVID-19 response is prominently displayed and heroically framed at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History — as the network of Smithsonian institutions face scrutiny over woke messaging from government officials.

Dr. Anthony Fauci , formerly the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has a prominent place at the museum's "Entertainment Nation" exhibit.

"As a deadly pandemic ravaged the nation, major sports leagues found themselves at the center of a debate over 'reopening' the country," a placard dedicated to Fauci says.

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"Amidst a cacophony of misinformation and denial, advice from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading epidemiologist, urged leagues to make decisions about resuming play 'based on scientific evidence and public health judgment,'" it continues. "When baseball became the first league to retake the field, Fauci threw the ceremonial opening pitch—wearing a facemask in a stadium empty of fans."

A diary kept by Fauci while the pandemic raged, recently exposed by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., shows a man fixated on his own fame, who acknowledged answers to controversial questions in private, but said the opposite in public.

One of those controversial questions dealt with the origin of the virus. COVID-19 may have originated in a National Institute of Health (NIH) funded facility in China. While Fauci recognized privately that the virus may have accidentally escaped a lab, he stalwartly maintained the opposite in public. Fauci critics who suggested otherwise, including other doctors, were castigated. Fauci also insisted that the government was not conducting controversial gain-of-function research. That was later proved false.

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Alongside the Smithsonian's heroic characterization of Fauci as a man of science, the museum prominently features that Washington Nationals baseball cap, signed by the doctor, that he wore while throwing out the first pitch when MLB resumed play after lockdowns.

Fauci also repeatedly denied that he was behind the damaging pandemic-era lockdowns , but acknowledged in his diary that mayors and health officials in the country's largest metropolitan areas, including New York City and Los Angeles, were taking his advice to shut their municipalities down.

Diary posts also show that the doctor, often framed as a humble lifelong public servant, was obsessed with the attention he received during the pandemic. He extensively documented flattering news stories about himself, bragging in May of 2020 that his "national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable" and that it was "not hyperbole" to say he was "the most famous and talked about person in the country."

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The pandemic claimed 1.2 million American lives.

Fauci was grilled on Capitol Hill Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, chaired by Paul. He invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 111 times, failing to answer a single question.

The Smithsonian is dealing with government scrutiny of its own, both from congress and the White House .

The American History museum's director, Anthea Hartig, was grilled before Congress last week over sexually explicit imagery, Mickey Mouse being linked to racism and a museum toolkit discussing "objectivity" as a feature of White supremacy.

The museum's MASS Action Toolkit, a mid-2010s anthology for museums that references the 2014 Ferguson, Missouri, police shooting of Mike Brown and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests. It links politeness and being on time to white supremacy.

The White House chastised the taxpayer-funded museum for pushing "one-sided, divisive political narratives."

"American taxpayers should not be funding institutions that undermine our country or promote one-sided, divisive political narratives," White House official Lindsey Halligan told Fox News Digital. "The Smithsonian Institution should present history in a way that is accurate, balanced, and consistent with the values that make the United States of America exceptional."

The White House also released a report on July 4 that criticized the Smithsonian's portrayal of American history, and more recently, President Donald Trump ordered the National Park Service to place signs outside the museum directing visitors and passersby to an online resource that he says portrays an "accurate" version of American history.

He also blasted the museum as "woke" and "OUT OF CONTROL" on TRUTH Social.

Fox News' Charles Creitz and Jasmine Baehr contributed to this report.

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