Dr. Anthony Fauci held a “very good talk” in July 2022 with Sam Bankman-Fried to discuss pandemic preparedness months before news broke that the cryptocurrency tycoon was a fraudster.

Fauci recorded the call in his diary, 1,141 pages of which were released earlier this week by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). The conversation was one of many that Fauci held with celebrities enamored by his role directing the response to COVID-19 as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.