Mike Pompeo Fires Back Against Charge Trump Administration Didn't Do Enough to Press China Over Coronavirus

 

It's hard to imagine anyone tougher on China, specifically when it comes to the origins of the Wuhan coronavirus, than the Trump administration. Yet, while on "Fox News Sunday," former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked by host Chris Wallace to defend the administration he worked under. 

Fortunately, the former secretary was up to the task. "Chris, the predicate of your question is all wrong," he told Wallace. The host had charged: 

You also criticized President Biden for not pushing hard enough on China to learn the origins of the coronavirus. But I want to again go back to your 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. 

Now, 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 the 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.

Perhaps it would be more appropriate for Wallace to ask some of his colleagues in the media that question. For when Donald Trump, both during and after his time in office, attempted to sound the alarm of the likelihood that the Wuhan virus originated from a leak at the Wuhan lab, he was resoundingly dismissed. 

Members of Congress strove to raise awareness as well, including Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI). 

The Chinese Communist Party covered up the spread of the Wuhan virus.

RETWEET if you want to see this administration DEMAND ANSWERS.

— Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo) June 11, 2021

Further, the Trump administration, under Sec. Pompeo, had been conducting an investigation into the Wuhan lab, but it was stopped by the Biden administration. Meanwhile, the current administration still thinks that the WHO can actually be trusted, even when there are mountains of evidence in plain sight showing how compromised it is.

As Sec. Pompeo offered when sticking up for himself and the Trump administration: 

POMPEO:  Chris, the predicate of your question is all wrong. We have a  really good idea of what happened here. There's an enormous amount of  evidence that there was a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. 

There's a -- there's a pile of evidence hundred feet high. I have -- I have high confidence that that's the case. 

We pressed the Chinese Communist Party really hard, not just the State Department, but our CDC and others, too. We withdrew from the WHO, which had become politicized. 

This administration chose to get back in that. 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 of the Chinese Communist Party. 

We built that Operation Warp Speed. I was thrilled to hear they are going to distribute these vaccines around the world to countries that need it. 

They couldn't do that but for the work that happened on the Project Warp Speed. It was remarkable and historic work. 

We 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.

When Wallace followed up by asking, "Do you believe that the virus came from a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute?" Pompeo answered, "I do." 

Wallace did not have any other kind of a response to that topic, as he moved on to immigration. But we do know how members of the media reacted. 

David Edwards, in covering the exchange for Raw Story, claimed Pompeo "refused to answer the question."

Olivia Reingold writing for POLITICO reported that Pompeo gave his answer that the virus came from the lab leak "without offering specifics."

Reingold actually cited the WHO in her reporting, though she made no mention of how untrustworthy the body is: 

The former Trump administration official is one of the foremost proponents of the lab leak theory, which posits that the coronavirus emerged from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology. In March, the World Health Organization called that position "extremely unlikely" in its report on the origin of the virus. But the theory has gained bipartisan support after The Wall Street Journal reported that three scientists at the Wuhan lab experienced coronavirus symptoms in November 2019.

The WHO is questionable at best, in part because one of its lead investigators into the theory of origins of the virus is Peter Daszak, whose EcoAlliance provided a grant to fund research at the Wuhan lab, which Townhall has consistently reported on. To quote Rep. Gallagher, Daszak has "corrupted" the WHO investigation. 

Justin Baragona, writing for the Daily Beast, said that Pompeo "attempted to dismiss the question" and "basically tried to brush off Wallace." 

"Meanwhile, Pompeo's claim that the new administration was letting China off the hook was disproven almost exactly as he spoke," Baragona wrote. "On Sunday, Biden convinced G7 leaders to call on Beijing for a transparent inquiry into the origins of COVID-19," he closed with. 

As Katie reported, though, members at the G7 summit and current Secretary of State Antony Blinken still somehow think we can depend on the WHO to figure all of this out. "Did G7 Leaders Just Ensure We Will Never Know How Wuhan Coronavirus Really Started?" Katie aptly asked in her headline.