Seth Moulton Says Support For COVID Lab Leak Theory 'Isn't Surprising At All'

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) said Sunday he wasn’t surprised at growing support for the theory that a lab leak in China led to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Watch the video below.)

Moulton was interviewed by CNN ’s Jim Acosta after news outlets reported the U.S. Department of Energy now believes the most likely cause of the outbreak, which has killed more than 6.8 million worldwide , originated from a laboratory leak. The FBI earlier sided with the lab hypothesis as well, but divisions remain in the U.S. intelligence community over whether it was spawned in a lab or jumped from animals to humans at a Wuhan market where wildlife was sold.

The Energy Department reportedly arrived at its conclusion with “low confidence,” but Acosta asked Moulton, who serves on a House committee that monitors the Chinese Communist party, about his reaction to it.

“I mean, look, I’m not entirely surprised,” Moulton said. “The Chinese have mishandled COVID at every step of the way, trying to sweep it under the rug, trying a strategy of zero COVID that utterly failed. And tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Chinese are dead as a result of the mismanagement of this pandemic by the Chinese Communist Party.”

“For it to come out that the whole thing started because of mismanagement, I mean, look, we need to see whether this is true, but if it is, I don’t find it surprising at all,” Moulton continued. 

Early in the pandemic, Moulton withdrew from a bipartisan resolution blaming China for the outbreak, saying it would stoke racism .

Former White House pandemic adviser Anthony Fauci said in November that most evidence points to the virus source being bats in the Wuhan market, but he said he was open to the possibility of a lab leak .

China has resisted cooperating with international investigations.