Schiff: Trump Admin Going After China to ‘Deflect Attention Away’ from ‘Terrible Mishandling’ of Virus

On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) reacted to the Trump administration’s claims that the coronavirus originated in a lab by stating the administration is attempting to “deflect attention away” from their “terrible mishandling of this virus” and to do so, “they’ve chosen to go after China.”

Schiff said, “If there is anything to have high confidence about in that regard or ‘enormous evidence,’ they have yet to share it with Congress. And we are told that we are currently informed on the latest intelligence. So, I don’t know where they’re getting this, apart from either expressing their desire or they’re withholding information from Congress, but I don’t see what would be gained by doing so. I think what they’re clearly trying to do is deflect attention away from the administration’s terrible mishandling of this virus and all of the false narrative that the president was putting out early on about this going away on its own, being no worse than the flu, that we were going to contain it down to zero. And so, they’ve chosen to go after China. Look, there’s a lot to criticize China about. I don’t want to make any mistakes about that. They should have been far more transparent about the human-to-human transmission, and they did conceal things, but whether they can get the intelligence agencies to somehow search for the conclusion they want to reach, that’s not how the agencies are supposed to work, and there’s a danger in the administration either putting out theories that cannot be substantiated or deliberately provoking a fight during the middle of a pandemic.”

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