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A recent Forbes investigation looked at how Dr. Anthony Fauci became the highest paid federal employee, with an annual salary significantly higher than the President of the United States.    

According to Forbes, with a 2020 salary of $432,312, Fauci out-earned not only the U.S. president ($400,000), but also four-star generals in the military ($282,000) and roughly 4.3 million other federal employees. 

How? Fauci received steep pay hikes over the years for research he oversaw on biodefense, or as Forbes put it, “Fauci was paid to prevent pandemics.”

In 2004, during the George Bush Administration, Fauci received a whopping 68% pay increase, from $200,000 to $335,000 a year. 

Fauci salary

Documents obtained by OpenTheBooks.com via Freedom of Information Act requests show Fauci’s “permanent pay adjustment” was carried forward through 2020. 

According to the documents, Fauci’s pay raise was to “appropriately compensate him for the level of responsibility … especially as it relates to his work on biodefense research activities.”

As Forbes points out, the biodefense research Fauci was paid handsomely for overseeing — which was primarily to “prevent pandemics” — is the same gain-of-function research responsible for creating pandemic pathogens that much of the scientific community condemned as too risky.