Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, told Newsmax on Monday the idea that COVID-19 leaked from a lab used to be a "fringe theory" that only a "loon" or a conspiracy theorist would believe.
"It used to be a fringe theory, if you remember, and a lot of the mainstream media were dismissing it, and you were a loon if you purported to believe that it was leaked from a lab," Fallon said during an appearance on Newsmax's "National Report."
"Circumstantially, where do they do virology research in China? In Wuhan. And where did this virus originate? Wuhan. That, in and of itself, is quite a coincidence," Fallon said. "But now the FBI and the U.S. Energy Department think the preponderance of the evidence shows them that it's more likely than not that it did leak from a lab, which many of us suspected for a couple of years.
"Think also about what happened with the delta variant in South Africa. They welcomed the international community to come in because they didn't know what it was. Did the Chinese communists do that? Or did they close their doors and their borders and say, We'll handle it? And that's indicative of someone that's trying to cover something up."
Responding to a remark from Dr. Anthony Fauci that people should look to the virologists and "not the people who want to politicize this," for answers, Fallon said, "much like a lot of what Anthony Fauci said. That didn't age too well, did it?
"You want to talk about politicizing? What did Anthony Fauci do for two years? He politicized. He mixed medicine with politics, and when you do that, you get two results. You get bad medicine and bad politics."
Asked about responsibility and accountability for COVID's origins, the Fallon said Congress needs to "get to the bottom" of it.
"It's sad that when the Democrats were in control of all levers of government, they did not do this because they were somehow making this a partisan issue, which didn't make a lick of sense," he said. "Before the 2020 election, they wanted to blame one person for COVID, and his name was Donald Trump and not the Chinese Communist Party.
"CNN was essentially reprinting things from the Chinese communist media, which is from the Chinese Communist Party itself, and we know one thing after 100 years: the communists lie like they breathe.
"So we definitely need to get to the bottom of this, and it should be a bipartisan effort because this, again, is not a Republican thing, not a Democratic thing – it should be an American thing."
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