Chris Wallace Confronts Pompeo on Investigation Into Covid Origins: Trump Admin ‘Had Almost a Year’ to Press the Chinese Gov’t

Fox News’ Chris Wallace pushed former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to explain why the Trump administration was unable to press China more for evidence on the origins of the coronavirus while they were in office.

As the country has seen an uptick in conversations about the possibility that the coronavirus emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Pompeo has stood by his assessment that the disease came from a Chinese laboratory as opposed to emerging naturally. Wallace spoke to Pompeo about this on Fox News Sunday, and as he noted Pompeo’s criticism for the Biden administration not pushing China harder on the origin of Covid, he put the focus on the Trump administration’s efforts toward that front.

“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. “Now, there’s no question that the president pulled back from the WHO, 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?”

Pompeo retorted that “the predicate of your question is all wrong.”

“We have a really good idea what happened here. There is an enormous amount of evidence that there was a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Pompeo said. “There’s a pile of evidence 100 feet high. I have high confidence that that’s the case.”

Pompeo insisted that “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 coverup continues and it’s time for accountability.”

“Do you believe that the virus came from a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute?” asked Wallace.

Pompeo responded to that with a simple “I do.”

Watch above, via Fox News Sunday.