Anti-Fauci RedState Editor Unmasked as Fauci Employee

The managing editor of conservative website RedState, who slammed the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases and director Dr. Anthony Fauci in numerous angry posts this year, has been unmasked as an NIAID employee. Bill Crews, who used the name "streiff" at RedState, is a public affairs specialist at the institute, according to Lachlan Markey at the Daily Beast. In his posts at RedState "streiff" described Fauci as a "mask nazi" and claimed the response to the pandemic was a "massive fraud" carried out by " militant progressives who loathe America and individual freedom." He referred to government experts as the "public health Gestapo" and said dozens of them deserved to be executed.

'Streiff" insisted that measures including masks, business closures, and social distancing were unnecessary. By perpetuating the disinformation that the NIH says has damaged efforts to fight he pandemic, he "isn't just a civil servant anonymously disagreeing with his bosses online; he’s actively undermining their work and even suggesting retribution against them," Markey writes. He says the Daily Beast identified Crews was identified through "public records, social media postings, and internal records" but was unable to confirm that he had been posting from work, though many of his RedState posts were made during business hours. An NIAID spokesperson tells CNN's Oliver Darcy that NIAID "first learned of this matter this morning, and Mr. Crews has informed us of his intention to retire." (More National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases stories.)