Pompeo Says Staffers in His State Department Worked to ‘Thwart’ Promotion of Wuhan Lab Leak Theory

There’s been a news cycle’s worth of finger pointing at the media for dismissing the theory that Covid-19 leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China. Much of the criticism has been well deserved. Despite what outlets like the Washington Post breathlessly reported, the theory was never debunked or a conspiracy.

But back in Spring of 2020, when the coronavirus was battering the United States and sending the rest of the world into lockdowns of varying severity, it wasn’t just the media that was downplaying the lab leak theory.

Under the Trump administration, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a statement on behalf of the Intelligence Community in April 2020 that the U.S. “concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified.”

“As we do in all crises, the Community’s experts respond by surging resources and producing critical intelligence on issues vital to U.S. national security,” the statement continued. “The IC will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.”

That Intelligence Community includes the State Department, which at the time of that statement was under the command of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a fact pointed out by Fox News host Laura Ingraham in her interview with Pompeo Thursday night.

At the time, much to the fury of Chinese officials, Pompeo said there was evidence it originated in a laboratory.

Speaking to Ingraham on Thursday night, the former secretary of state blamed staffers within his own department of sabotaging efforts to promote the lab leak theory.

“It should come as no surprise to anyone that there were folks at the State Department who didn’t like President Trump, didn’t like me, didn’t like what we were doing and were going to work to thwart our efforts,” Pompeo said.

The lab leak theory remains unproven, and many in the scientific community continue to say it is more likely the coronavirus originated in a Chinese wet market. Pompeo told Ingraham he believes the virus “probably” came from the lab.

“Mr. Secretary, why was the DNI downplaying what you are trying to uncover at the time?” Ingraham asked Pompeo, who is now a Fox News contributor.

“We worked diligently to get the intelligence community to declassify more. [Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe] was a great partner in trying to do that, but there were folks all over the community who just didn’t want to talk about this, who wanted to stay focused on other things,” Pompeo said.

“They didn’t want the world to know that the Chinese Communist Party was in the process of covering-up, it turns out, what might have been several million losses of life.”

When asked why U.S. government officials would want to cover up for China’s cover up, Pompeo declined to answer.

Watch above, via Fox News.