By Joshua Rhett Miller
A longtime Forbes contributor claims he lost his job after he was pressured to stop his investigative reporting on Dr. Anthony Fauci, which revealed his looming $350,000 retirement package.
Adam Andrzejewski, CEO and founder of OpenTheBooks.com, said that he was let go by the magazine he was “admonished” for his coverage of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director.
“Forbes couldn’t resist the pressure from the National Institutes of Health,” he told The Post in an email on Tuesday. “Forbes editors — in email and on the phone — admonished that I wrote too many columns on Fauci.”
Andrzejewski first told Fox News Monday he was “canceled” by the magazine after eight years and more than 200 columns — four of which last year were about the White House chief medical advisor.
“Clearly, Forbes’ editors did not want our oversight of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s finances on the website,” Andrzejewski told Tucker Carlson.
Though he said the magazine didn’t explicitly cite Fauci for his termination, Andrzejewski believes that the pressure from health officials played a role.
Andrzejewski said six top executives at the National Institutes of Health recently sent him and the magazine’s top content officer an email on his coverage.
“It was couched as a corrections email, but the corrections — there was basically no substantial corrections — and they quibbled about small things in my column,” Andrzejewski said. “But that was the excuse that Forbes used to cancel the column.”
After receiving that email, Andrzejewski said he got a call within 24 hours from his Forbes editor saying he was prohibited from publishing any additional material on Fauci.
“Each piece, though, broke national news regarding his finances and federal employment,” Andrzejewski said of his coverage of the country’s top doctor.
“Today, if you are an independent voice, outside of the organs of state authority, you are in jeopardy. I am an example of this. My column at Forbes became an example of that.”
Andrzejewski, whose coverage revealed Fauci was the highest-paid government employee in 2019, also noted he reported last month that disclosures show Fauci and his wife made $1.7 million in 2020, while their net worth exceeds $10.4 million.
“Many people don’t know that Anthony Fauci’s wife, Christine Grady, is the chief bioethicist at the National Institutes of Health,” Andrzejewski told Carlson. “She makes more than the vice president — north of $235,000.”
Fauci, meanwhile, earns more than annually President Biden, Andrzejewski said, raking in a cool $456,000.
“So if you take their salaries, tack on the taxpayer-paid cost of federal benefits at 30 percent, the two Faucis, their household income, paid for by taxpayers every year is $900,000,” Andrzejewski told Carlson.
A Forbes spokesman confirmed to The Post Tuesday that Andrzejewski was no longer with the magazine.
“Forbes regularly removes contributors who don’t meet our high editorial standards,” spokesman Bill Hankes wrote in an email.
Hankes noted Andrzejewski has “published numerous articles on Dr. Fauci’s finances that are readily available on Forbes.”
In January 2021, OpenTheBooks.com reported that Fauci’s 2019 salary had been listed at $417,608 — the highest listed for any government figure. Fauci will also take in a pension estimated at $350,000 per year when he retires — the most in federal history, Andrzejewski reported last month.
Andrzejewski said he’s now looking for a new editorial partnership, but plans to keep posting original content on OpenTheBooks.com.
“We literally have 500 new oversight investigations coming down the pike,” Andrzejewski told The Post. “This includes current federal litigation with the National Institutes of Health over Dr. Fauci’s financial documents.”