‘Entirely Fallacious’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Schooled During Tense Exchange At Hearing On Covid-19’s Origin

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) sparred with Dr. Mark Lowenthal on Tuesday during a heated exchange in a House Oversight Committee hearing on the origins of Covid-19.

Lowenthal, a witness called by the Democrats, formerly served as an intelligence official in both the CIA and the U.S. State Department and had little patience for Greene’s line of questioning. Greene, in turn, accused Lowenthal of being partisan based on previous statements he had made about former President Donald Trump.

“The NIH funded through grants eco alliance with the gain of function research. We know that for a fact our government paid for it. Our taxpayers, unfortunately, unknowingly paid for it. So we know all this to be true, and we know it was going on at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Mr. Lowenthal, with your dedication to being an analyst of information, why is it so hard to determine whether Covid-19 came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology or not?” Greene asked Lowenthal.

“Because the Chinese will not give us access to the information that we need if they gave us the kind of access that Mr. Feith is talking about. If they gave us samples, if they gave us access to their records, and you will never be sure with the Chinese whether they’re giving you the access that you want, we are never going to be able to say with a high degree of certainty,” Lowenthal replied.

“May I respond to something else you said in your comments Ms. Greene? there is a vast, vast difference between tracking a leak on a social media site and determining the origins of this disease, and to compare the two is entirely fallacious, ma’am,” Lowenthal added.

Lowenthal was responding to earlier remarks from Greene in which she blasted intelligence officials for quickly finding the source of the recent military documents leak, but their inability to track the origins of Covid-19.

“So, the intelligence community is able to figure out immediately who was leaking classified information in a Discord chat, but yet still doesn’t want to say whether it came from the lab or didn’t come from the lab,” Greene raged, striking a conspiratorial tone. “The intelligence communities seem to release or not release information based on how the information will affect the government that it seems to protect.”

Greene hit back at Lowenthal and tried to go after his credibility as a witness:

Dr. Lowenthal, you’ve said that you keep your intelligence claims and information nonpartisan. In 2018, Mr. Lowenthal, you were quoted in the New York Times saying that President Trump is the best president that Russia ever had. That sounds pretty political to me.

“I was no longer an intelligence officer at the time, ma’am, I’m a private citizen,” Lowenthal shot back.

Watch the full clip above via CSPAN.