Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday a statement from the World Health Organization that the COVID-19 pandemic did not likely begin with a leak from a Wuhan, China laboratory has not changed his mind about the origins of the deadly disease or the validity of the WHO itself.
"I've seen that headline and I must say the reason we left the World Health Organization was because we came to believe that it was corrupt," Pompeo said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "It had been politicized. It was bending a knee to China. I hope that's not the case here with what they have announced today."
Peter Ben Embarek, who heads the WHO's team of experts investigating the origins of COVID-19, said Tuesday it is "unlikely" that a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology started the outbreak, and that more work is needed to determine the start of the disease that has killed millions worldwide.
Experts continue to believe the virus is likely to have originated in animals before it spread to humans, reports the BBC.
"I will look forward to seeing their reports and analysis," Pompeo said. "I don't believe it's the case that they got access that they needed. I know they didn't get the access they needed in a timely fashion. I hope they got to see all the data and science in the lab and interview them in private where they could actually tell the truth about what took place, and not under the supervision of a Communist Party person sitting in the back of the room making sure they toed the Communist Party line."
Pompeo also insisted that he, personally, continues to "know there was significant evidence this may well have come from that laboratory."
The former secretary also dismissed President Joe Biden's comments about working with China and said he should be worried more about protecting Americans.
"We have to confront the challenge that the Chinese Communist Party is presenting to America and to the world, whether it's the thousands and thousands of lives lost as a result of the Wuhan virus or the millions of jobs that were destroyed by the Chinese Communist Policy stole our stuff and dumped it back into the United States, or the Chinese military working so hard to make sure they can be a power," said Pompeo.
The former secretary, just before leaving office, declared that China was guilty of genocide with the government's treatment of Muslims, and said it's still important to judge the nation by its actions, not by "propaganda."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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