Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) said Wednesday he believes the coronavirus was manmade at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and that the Chinese Communist Party-run government should be held liable for its outbreak around the world.

“If it were an American who did that, or an American company who did that, they would be held liable for every penny of damages suffered by the American people and our city, county, state, and federal governments. We should hold communist China to no less a standard of liability,” he said in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News on Wednesday.

Brooks went further to say that he believes the virus is part of the Chinese government’s bioweapons program and may even have been released on purpose as part of a military experiment, although there is not yet evidence of that yet. To date, only World Health Organization researchers have been allowed to inspect the lab.

Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli (L) is seen inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan, capital of China’s Hubei province on February 23, 2017. – The P4 epidemiological laboratory was built in co-operation with French bio-industrial firm Institut Merieux and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. (Photo by Johannes EISELE / AFP) (Photo by JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images)

“The issue is not whether it originated at the communist Chinese Wuhan bioweapons lab. The only issue is whether COVID-19 was released negligently or recklessly because of poor containment systems or released intentionally as part of a military experiment,” Brooks said.

He said he and other members of Congress met recently with Chinese defector Dr. Li-Meng Yan, who claimed that China was hard at work trying to develop bioweapons that could target populations based on race.

“I hope [this] will give the American people an incentive to force communist China to pay [for the] escape of COVID-19 from their bioweapons lab,” Brooks said.

Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee released a new report this week that said the “preponderance of evidence” suggested that the coronavirus accidentally escaped from the WIV and that the Chinese government acted as early as September 2019 to cover it up. It said:

It is the opinion of Committee Minority Staff, based on the preponderance of available information; the documented efforts to obfuscate, hide, and destroy evidence; and the lack of physical evidence to the contrary; that SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally released from a Wuhan Institute of Virology laboratory sometime prior to September 12, 2019. The virus, which may be natural in origin or the result of genetic manipulation, was likely collected in the identified cave in Yunnan province, PRC, sometime between 2012 and 2015. Its release was due to poor lab safety standards and practices, exacerbated by dangerous gain-of-function research being conducted at inadequate biosafety levels, including BSL-2. The virus was then spread throughout central Wuhan, likely via the Wuhan Metro, in the weeks prior to the Military World Games. Those games became an international vector, spreading the virus to multiple continents around the world.

The report also said in the years leading up to the pandemic, researchers at the WIV were engaged in classified research, including experiments on animals, on behalf of the People’s Liberation Army, citing a January 15, 2021 State Department fact sheet.

Brooks also criticized the Biden Pentagon’s move to require service members to reveal their vaccination status and a likely vaccine mandate once the vaccine is approved by the Food and Drug Administration. He said he and his wife are vaccinated, but that Americans should be given the choice and not pressured.

“The people in the military are our principle weapon fighting for Liberty and freedom,” he said. “My wife and I chose to take the vaccine, but I respect the decision of those who differ.”

He said masks and vaccines should also not be forced on children, due to the potential adverse side effects. “Over the past month, if the Alabama department of public health information is accurate, we’ve had zero deaths involving children, yet they are being forced to wear a mask with the possibility of being forced at some point in the future of taking a vaccine, and that’s wrong. That should be a parent’s decision, not the government’s,” he said.

Data on the Alabama Department of Public Health’s website showed that over the past four weeks, no children aged four or younger died from COVID-19, and less than one percent of deaths during that time were those aged five through 24, despite those age groups making up about 31 percent of the state’s population.

“We should defer to the individual judgment of adults as they try to discern through the exercise and liberty of freedom, which risks they’re willing to take, and which ones not,” he said.

Brooks, who is running for the U.S. Senate and has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump, slammed the Biden administration for its encouragement of indoor mask mandates for everyone, including those already vaccinated.

“The Biden administration is doing its utmost to promote a dictatorial government that undermines liberty and freedom. So yes, they are making it worse if the word ‘worse’ refers to the individual liberties and freedoms of American citizens that have been earned on many battlefields in America and throughout the world,” he said.

 

Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on Twitter or on Facebook.