Mike Pompeo Says He’s ‘Convinced’ COVID-19 Began As Lab Leak In China

Joshua Rhett Miller at the New York Post offers a piece on Mike Pompeo’s view that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in a Communist Chinese laboratory.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he is “convinced” that the coronavirus pandemic originated in a Chinese lab — and is accusing the Communist government of covering up the leak.

“There are many things the United States government could do to impose real cost on the Chinese Communist Party until they come clean about what they know and what they did,” Pompeo told Fox News.

“We know for sure they covered up this virus. I am confident that we will find that the evidence that we have seen to date is consistent with a lab leak and I’m convinced that’s what we’ll see. If I am wrong, I hope the Chinese Communist Party will come forward and make a fool of me.”

Pompeo, now a Fox News contributor, made the pointed comments following a report in the Wall Street Journal that three workers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized in November 2019 with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and seasonal illness.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

Mike Pompeo 'convinced' COVID-19 began as lab leak in China (nypost.com) 

Donald Trump To Reform Intelligence

Veteran national security reporter Bill Gertz offers a piece in the Washington Times on how President Trump will reform the intelligence community.

One national security priority of the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump is to reform the heavily bureaucratized and, to some critics, politicized U.S. intelligence community.

Mr. Trump recently clashed with intelligence officials over the disclosure of a false dossier produced by a former British intelligence official that was leaked by someone in the U.S. government in a bid to embarrass the new president.

A source close to the Trump transition team said plans to do away with the director of national intelligence are still being considered, despite the announced nomination of former Indiana Republican Sen. Dan Coats to be the new DNI.

The reform could include reverting to the old system of having a director of central intelligence as a nominal chief of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies who also ran the CIA. The new system could include separate DCI and CIA directors.

That would leave Mr. Coats as the DCI along with Rep. Mike Pompeo, the director-designate of the CIA. Both are conservatives who favor reforming the current intelligence system.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/18/donald-trump-to-reform-us-intelligence-community/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT0RWbFlUQmtOMk5sWTJVMCIsInQiOiIweXZPSndkd21CUCtCMWZZb2JrSmo3VVViV3NxdnRzS3dLTG1tbWV6dXNVNlVPbUtOSnFiaERQUGY4MnZ0KzcreW5BXC9uemtadVR3QVJSdk5cL0tNRXZCbHNScTlHTUFjQjg1ZHM5VUk4QUVXTm0yKzNiMEhiK2d3ZVVma21hTGIrIn0%3D