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Exclusive: Vindicated Trump Says Only Lab Leak Question Is If It Was ‘On Purpose’
https://thefederalist.com ^ | JUNE 11, 2021 | By Ben Weingarten

Posted on 06/11/2021 7:21:20 AM PDT by Red Badger

Former President Donald Trump took a victory lap over the theory that the Chinese coronavirus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

It “came from Wuhan, it came from the lab,” he said in an exclusive interview this week. “I don’t have a question: ‘Did it come from the lab?’ I have a question, ‘Did they do it on purpose, or was it an accident?’”

Most likely, the former president guesses, the virus escaped the Wuhan lab “through gross incompetence, and it got away from them [the Chinese authorities], and they panicked.”

“I don’t think they knew what to do,” he continued. “The one thing they did know to do is to shut it [Wuhan] off from the rest of China,” but not to “shut it [China] off to the outside world.”

Over the last month, a number of prominent scientists and science reporters have argued the so-called lab leak theory is plausible if not probable, challenging peers who spent months disparaging it as a conspiracy theory. Intelligence reported by the Wall Street Journal in May indicated several scientists at the WIV were hospitalized in November 2019, weeks before China’s “patient zero” was identified, fueling speculation about the lab leak theory.

Sudden consideration of the lab leak theory by the corporate media prompted an about-face from the Biden administration, which called for a 90-day intelligence community review of the virus’s origins mere hours after revelations emerged it had quashed a similar effort initiated by the Trump administration.

Despite the Biden administration and the corporate media’s abrupt change of tone, the Wall Street Journal’s recent revelations largely corroborated what the outgoing Trump administration State Department had theorized months earlier. Trump sees the sudden acceptance of the lab leak theory by the same institutions that previously mocked it as intensely political, attributing the original dismissal of the theory to two potential causes.

The first is simply that he endorsed it, and therefore a hostile political and media establishment automatically opposed it. The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman has basically admitted as much.

Second, China has American “politicians … wrapped around their finger,” Trump hypothesized. “China told them to” take an adverse position, he said of the public officials who harangued him over the theory. From the earliest days of the COVID outbreak, the Chinese Communist Party has sought to distance itself from the virus broadly, and the WIV as its point of origin in particular — obfuscation that itself makes the lab leak theory more plausible.

In a recent rally, President Trump called for China to pay at least $10 trillion in restitution for the damage caused by the outbreak, and recommended “all countries should collectively cancel any debt they owe to China as a down payment on reparations.”

China “should pay something for that kind of gross mismanagement, incompetence, or if it were done purposely,” he told me.

Trump’s comments came during an interview conducted for a book project on U.S.-China policy on which I am working thanks to The Fund for American Studies’ Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship.

Ben Weingarten is a Federalist senior contributor, senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, and fellow at the Claremont Institute. He was selected as a 2019 Robert Novak Journalism fellow of the Fund for American Studies, under which he is currently working on a book on U.S.-China policy. You can find his work at benweingarten.com, and follow him on Twitter @bhweingarten.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: chinavirus
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1 posted on 06/11/2021 7:21:20 AM PDT by Red Badger
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To: Red Badger
“I don’t think they knew what to do,” he continued. “The one thing they did know to do is to shut it [Wuhan] off from the rest of China,” but not to “shut it [China] off to the outside world.”

With all due respect to President Trump, who I voted for in 2016, 2020 and will do so again in 2024 if he runs, the fact of the matter is this:

China shut Wuhan off to China. China allowed hundreds of flights with infected Chinese to go all over the world. Thousands landed in LAX, ORD and JFK and began spreading the virus immediately.

They did the same in Italy, the UK and other parts of Europe.

There is zero question in my mind this action was deliberate and an act of war. It was human driven BIO-TERROR.

Why Beijing isn't a smoldering pile of nuclear ash to this day puzzles me.

China must be made to pay a heavy, heavy price for their act of BIO-TERROR against the United States and indeed the world. That will never happen with a pResident Xiden administration.

Trump / Desantis 2024!!!

2 posted on 06/11/2021 7:25:31 AM PDT by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: Red Badger

Trump should really push the narrative that this is the only question left but unfortunately, our intelligence community has been too busy spying on Trump and his family, putting out disinformation and lying to the American public instead of doing their job.

That is why we don’t know if it was on purpose or not.


3 posted on 06/11/2021 7:27:09 AM PDT by nitzy
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To: Red Badger

4 posted on 06/11/2021 7:27:44 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire. Or both.)
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To: Red Badger

Why isn’t Beijing smoldering?, because Fauci made us complicit in the crime.


5 posted on 06/11/2021 7:29:49 AM PDT by Cold Heart
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To: Red Badger

It was coordinated between China and the DNC, most likely Barak.


6 posted on 06/11/2021 7:31:35 AM PDT by bray (Hating Whites is racist)
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To: nitzy

The intelligence agencies have two jobs, cover for the DNC and prosecute Repubs.


7 posted on 06/11/2021 7:32:42 AM PDT by bray (Hating Whites is racist)
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To: Red Badger

The spread was deliberate whether the leak was or not


8 posted on 06/11/2021 7:36:13 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Lean on Joe Biden to follow Donald Trump's example and donate his annual salary to charity.)
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To: Cold Heart

“...because Fauci made us complicit in the crime....”

THIS ^
Fauxi was most likely the “front man” coordinator between the CCP and the RAT/DS on the planned release. IF proven to be true, the little commie POS needs to be the first of many to be arrested, tried and hanged for treason, mass murder and crimes against humanity.


9 posted on 06/11/2021 7:48:10 AM PDT by lgjhn23 (Pray for America....)
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To: usconservative
There is zero question in my mind this action was deliberate and an act of war.

We live in the part of the country that was the first hotspot. We have been in close contact with numerous people who later claimed to have had the dreaded virus. We have been coughed on picked our noses after pushing shopping carts and even had large gatherings in our house with family and friends.

A few days ago I had a blood test for antibodies to Covid. It came back negative. I worked as one of the heads of a Hazmat team for many years. Actual "bioweapon"s are very scary and I had probably ten times as many vaccinations as most people. A virus that the vast majority of people under 70 have to get a test for to know if they have had it is not a “bioweapon”. This situation has been used as political weapon of opportunity by the Chinese and the left, but that is not the same thing. They would not have had to rely on ridiculously exaggerated claims and statistics meant to keep the public in panic mode if this was a true “bioweapon.”

10 posted on 06/11/2021 7:49:46 AM PDT by fireman15
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To: lgjhn23

Why would the Chicoms plan a release of something that is so obviously tracible back to them? That makes no sense.


11 posted on 06/11/2021 7:53:43 AM PDT by lodi90
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To: nitzy

Our intelligence community, like every other agency of our government, was completely corrupted by the Kenyanesian Usurpation.

The founders knew what they were doing when they excluded the children of foreigners with the natural born citizen clause.


12 posted on 06/11/2021 7:58:10 AM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizens Are Born Here of Citizen Parents)(Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: lodi90

“..Why would the Chicoms plan a release of something that is so obviously traceable back to them? That makes no sense...”

They had the same goals as the DNC/DS: Get rid of Trump.
Trump had em by the gonads on trade and financially.
They were probably assured by the DNC/DS that there would be no repercussions, and things would return back favorable to them.
Plus, they’re outright arrogant and have no fear of anyone in the world...that includes PedoJoe and his band of merry idiots.


13 posted on 06/11/2021 8:00:54 AM PDT by lgjhn23 (Pray for America....)
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To: lodi90

Controlled release on themselves. They got rid of Trump and got Hong Kong. Long march onto the next target.


14 posted on 06/11/2021 8:01:36 AM PDT by Cold Heart
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To: Red Badger

“On Purpose”
Or
“For A Purpose.”
.
Orange Man Bad.


15 posted on 06/11/2021 8:05:55 AM PDT by Big Red Badger (Be Still and Know that I Am God. Rev 19)
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To: lodi90

LOL.

Why do you think the ChiComs would give a sh_t if this is traced back to them? Who’s going to “trace” it? Their WHO organization? The conspirators in our government.

It makes perfect sense. These are people who run over college students with tanks, for fun.


16 posted on 06/11/2021 8:06:39 AM PDT by Empire_of_Liberty
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To: fireman15

Yes...to me, the best thing to come out of all of this is the demonstration that no one really knows much about the flu, how it spreads, who is likely to die from it, etc. I had it bad in the 90s...almost killed me, but no one else around me got it! How does that work!??? At the time I was in the AF and they made me get the flu shot and 6 months later...BAM!. I’ll never make that mistake again, but I do believe that possibly made me immune to COVID somehow! I know that no one can explain it!


17 posted on 06/11/2021 8:08:14 AM PDT by gr8eman (in God we trust...all others get the flu shot!)
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To: Red Badger

They sure did allow people to leave China thereby exporting the virus around the world killing millions and causing trillions in losses, hell the USA should get at least $10 trillion.


18 posted on 06/11/2021 8:14:44 AM PDT by stockpirate (Rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God., Where Justice Ends Tyranny Begins)
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To: usconservative

That would be so awesome. Gosh I wish 2024 was not so flipping far away.


19 posted on 06/11/2021 8:15:56 AM PDT by kelly4c
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To: gr8eman

Hmm, same thing here, was in bed for 8 days with a terrible flu in the 90s. Nobody else in house got sick. I was never diagnosed but my mom got me to call the doctor and surprisingly to me at the time he called in an antibiotic without seeing me. I started feeling better within like 30 hours.

Haven’t caught Covid even though I’ve been working in the office throughout and husband had it. I’ve wondered if some of us had some specific bug in the past that has rendered us more immune to Sars Cov2.


20 posted on 06/11/2021 8:24:17 AM PDT by kelly4c
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