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Photo illustration of Anthony Fauci via Imagine Art

The phrase “follow the money” gained popularity following the 1976 film “All the President’s Men” as a strategy to expose political corruption. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans are learning how a small political elite profited while millions suffered amid lockdowns and other overly restrictive COVID-related policies.

In 2019, before the outbreak of the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci had a net worth of $7.5 million. By the end of 2021, Fauci’s net worth nearly doubled as he skyrocketed to $12.6 million despite receiving a federal government salary of roughly $450,000. Since the math doesn’t add up, Americans are left asking themselves one simple question: How does this happen?

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A bombshell investigative report by OpenTheBooks, a transparency organization, reveals the problem may be much bigger than previously thought. After filing a lawsuit using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), OpenTheBooks discovered 56,000 financial transactions that totaled over $325 million flowing to the country’s top COVID experts.

Records show that the former NIH Director, Dr. Francis Collins, and former NIAID Director, Dr. Anthony Fauci, made massive profits from royalty checks during the Chinese virus-fueled pandemic.

Republican Rep. Rand Paul directly confronted Dr. Fauci on the issue by saying, “The NIH continues to refuse to voluntarily divulge the names of scientists who receive royalties and from which companies over the period of time from 2010 to 2016, 27,000 royalty payments were paid to 1800 NIH employees.”

“We know that. Not because you told us, but because we forced you to tell us through the Freedom of Information Act,” Paul added. Collins and Fauci received at least 58 royalty payments for allowing companies to use their COVID-19 vaccines.

OpenTheBooks CEO Adam Andrzejewski said, “While Dr. Fauci has been a government bureaucrat for more than 55 years, his household net worth skyrocketed during the pandemic. Fauci’s soaring net worth was based on career-end salary spiking, lucrative cash prizes awarded by non-profit organizations around the world and an ever-larger investment portfolio,” he added.

“Despite becoming a figure of controversy, the system has rewarded Dr. Fauci handsomely,” Andrzejewski said. “For example, he is the top-paid federal employee, his first-year golden parachute retirement pension is the largest in federal history, and he’s accepting $1 million prizes from foreign non-profits.”

Fauci isn’t the only person would profited while much of the world suffered. An investigative report found that COVID vaccines helped create at least nine new billionaires with “a combined wealth greater than the cost of vaccinating the world’s poorest countries.”

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The People’s Vaccine Alliance confirmed that “at least nine people have become new billionaires since the beginning of the COVID pandemic.” This new wealth is due to “the excessive profits pharmaceutical corporations with monopolies on COVID vaccines are making.”

The nine new billionaires have a combined net wealth of $19.3 billion. CNBC found that COVID pandemic drove Pfizer’s 2022 revenue to a record $100 billion and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla received a 36% pay hike by netting $33 million personally.

Despite Bourla’s massive financial success and four doses of his company’s vaccine, the quadruple-vaxxed Pfizer CEO still tested positive for COVID last year in August 2022.

At the time, Bourla said he’s “thankful” to have received four doses of the vaccine. Appearing on CNBC last year, Bourla said people can enjoy a “perfectly normal life with just injection maybe once a year and the pill that in case we are sick will make it like a flu like rather than a life threatening disease.” Despite Bourla’s efforts to mandate annual injections of his company’s drug, fewer people are receiving the COVID-19 vaccine or booster vaccine, according to ABC and CNN.