While the Biden administration never released the government’s secret beliefs on COVID’s origin as required by law, President Trump should seek reparations from China for unleashing it.

That’s the view of Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, whose COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023, which passed Congress unanimously and was signed by Joe Biden, required the release of government intelligence on COVID’s origins by the summer of 2023.

In its first week, the new Trump administration released a CIA assessment indicating a belief the disease mostly likely escaped China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The release was a reminder that the Biden administration doesn’t appear to have ever complied with the law in question.

“No, they never complied,” Hawley told The Heartlander in an exclusive interview Thursday. “What the law requires is that they turn over the intelligence, they make available the assessments from intelligence agencies, which the CIA finally did.  

“But the Biden administration just issued a couple of pages of summary, and would never actually reveal the evidence. 

“As I’ve said for years, listen, I’ve read the intelligence assessments. I read them years ago, could see them because as a member of Congress I’ve got access to them. The problem is, the public couldn’t see them. And they should be able to. 

“Americans are paying for this in every which way. They’re paying for it with their health and their lives when it comes to COVID. And they’re paying for it with their tax dollars when it comes to these agencies. And they deserve to know what the American government knew about the origins of COVID. 

“And the truth is, as we see now, we had multiple intelligence agencies saying years ago that they thought it was likely from a lab leak – that you had this Chinese lab doing experiments with a virus that existed in nature, but fooling around with it and then, lo and behold, it escaped. And here we are.”

The Republican-led Congress should take up the cause of releasing what the federal government knew or believed about COVID’s origin, Hawley says – adding that Trump should make reparations an issue in any negotiations with China.

“I think they owe everybody reparations. I mean, they owe the world reparations, but most importantly, the United States. I noticed the state of Missouri is suing to get exactly those reparations from China, and I think that that is absolutely just and appropriate.”

Indeed, after just an hour-long bench trial Monday, in which China declined to appear, a federal judge is now considering whether to award Missouri up to $25 billion for hoarding personal protective equipment (PPE) and other tools to fight its spread.

As for what the federal government should do, Hawley calls on Trump to act decisively on the belief that COVID did, indeed, escape from the Wuhan lab, costing America alone over $1.2 million deaths.

“Number one, we need the new administration, the Trump administration, to follow through and release all of the information,” Hawley argues. “This release from the CIA is a great first step. But we need total compliance across all of the agencies – FBI, every other intelligence agency or agency with an intelligence-gathering apparatus that had a view as to COVID.

“And there were multiple of them because, again, I’ve seen the intelligence assessments. We need all of those to be released and made available to the public. 

“And then I think that President Trump ought to say to China as part of our negotiations with them, ‘Listen, you owe us. You lied to us. You lied to the world. You caused this pandemic.’ And they ought to do something to make that right. 

“They could start with our trade negotiations, with our farmers and others. They could make it right.”

RFK Jr. promises to protect life

In other news, fresh off questioning him in a Senate hearing, Hawley said he supports the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be secretary of Health and Human Services, even though RFK Jr. is pro-choice.

“From my point of view, I’ve questioned him now both in private and publicly under oath, about his views on life. I mean, life is extremely important to me. I’m 100% pro-life. And I want to make sure that RFK is going to be a pro-life HHS secretary and he’s going to do what President Trump has promised to do. 

“Whatever his personal views are on abortion, he needs to follow the pro-life policies of President Trump. And he told me today under oath that he would do that, that taxpayer money would not go for abortions.

“He also told me – this is important – he would stop the Biden administration’s attempt to force every pediatrician in America to prescribe puberty blockers and hormone therapy treatments to kids who think they need to change their genders. 

“You know, in Missouri, we don’t allow that. You can’t do that if you’re a minor. Biden tried to force every pediatrician to do it, no matter what the state law was. Today, Robert Kennedy said he would put a stop to that at HHS. That was very welcome news.”

Hawley cautioned that, while he has a good shot at being confirmed,  RFK Jr. has stiff opposition on Capitol Hill due to pharmaceutical corporations opposed to Kennedy’s questioning of vaccine testing and safety.

That’s actually a badge of honor, Hawley says.

“Yeah, Big Pharma hates him. Hates him big time, which really speaks well of him. 

“I think he does have a chance to be confirmed. It will depend on Republicans. Democrats won’t vote for him, but we’ve got 53 Republicans in the United States Senate now, and it will really depend on how those Republicans vote. Do we hold all 53? I don’t know. We’re going to find out.”

How did Reagan airport crash happen?

And on the catastrophic collision of an Army Blackhawk helicopter with a commercial airplane landing at Reagan National Airport Wednesday night, Hawley said it’s urgent Americans learn why it happened.

“Well, my thoughts are it’s an unbelievable tragedy. We’ve got to figure out what led to this – how was it that we had these planes taking off and landing, and we also had a military aircraft, a Blackhawk, doing training right in the flight path? This just seems inexplicable to me. 

“I have not yet heard an explanation from anybody how this was allowed to happen, and that’s what we need to know. And we’ve got to figure out what in the world – why is this helicopter flying in and out of a flight path of an active airport? And it’s 9:00 at night. I mean, it’s sort of a prime time. You have planes backed up for literally miles in the sky waiting to land. It’s really inexplicable.

“But we’ve got to get answers here, and we need them sooner rather than later.”