Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US does not have certainty about the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic, even as he insisted the virus could have begun in a Chinese lab – a conclusion that other senior US officials, the US intelligence community and spy agencies in allied countries have all said that is not likely.
“We don’t have certainty. And there is significant evidence that this came from the laboratory. Those statements can both be true. I’ve made them both. Administration officials have made them. They’re all true,” he said at a press conference at the State Department Wednesday.
However, Pompeo asserted that the lack of certainty was not a contradiction from his past comments that there was “enormous evidence” it came from a lab, claiming that they could “both be true.”
Pompeo claimed there was “no separation” in the disparate answers from himself, top US military officials, Five Eyes officials, and the intelligence community.
“We’re all trying to figure out the right answer. We’re all trying to get to clarity,” Pompeo said. “There are different levels of certainty assessed at different places. That’s highly appropriate. People stare at data sets and come to different levels of confidence. Every one of us stares at this and knows the reality. The reality of this came from Wuhan.”
How China responded to US claim: The claim has unsurprisingly drawn fierce rebuttal from the Chinese government, which on Wednesday described the accusation as “smear” intended to bolster Trump’s reelection chances.
Remember: Here is what we know — and what we don’t know — about the claims and the laboratory at the center of the controversy.
