Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo objected to the framing of a question from “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace.
Pompeo argued that it was wrong of Wallace to suggest that the origins of the coronavirus pandemic were unknown when the evidence, in his mind, was clear that it had come from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. (RELATED: Mike Pompeo Says ‘Not A Thing’ Has Changed His View That Coronavirus Came From A Chinese Lab)
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Wallace began by challenging Pompeo, noting that he and others from former President Donald Trump’s administration had been critical of President Joe Biden over what they saw as a failure to hold the Chinese government accountable in relation to the pandemic.
“I want to again go back to your own administration and the record there. President Trump and his team, including you, had almost a year after COVID-19 first came on the scene, to really press Beijing on what the origins were when the evidence was much fresher,” Wallace said. There’s no question that the president pulled back from the WHO, the World Health Organization, but what did President Trump and his administration, including his secretary of state, do to press China harder to get the evidence on where the COVID-19 virus came from? Because we still don’t know.”
“Chris, the predicate of your question is all wrong. We have a really good idea of what happened here,” Pompeo pushed back. “There is an enormous amount of evidence that there was a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, there is a pile of evidence 100 feet high, I have high confidence that’s the case.”
Pompeo went on to say that the Trump administration had pressed the Chinese Communist Party, backing out of the WHO because they believed it had been politicized — and he criticized the Biden administration for immediately going back to the WHO.
“I don’t know what tools they think they are going to use but we were serious in this endeavor, we made clear that there would be real cost to the Chinese Communist Party,” Pompeo continued, adding, “It was remarkable and historic work to put real pressure on the Chinese Communist Party and we got very close to being able to make a lay-down case for what actually happened and how this virus came to kill millions of people around the world and destroy billions of dollars in wealth. We know enough now, the cover-up continues, and it’s time for accountability.”
“I want to ask about one more question, do you believe that the virus came from a lab leak from the Wuhan institute?” Wallace pressed for a direct answer.
“I do,” Pompeo replied.
