Editor's note: CGTN's First Voice provides instant commentary on breaking stories. The daily column clarifies emerging issues and better defines the news agenda, offering a Chinese perspective on the latest global events. This is the second part in a series on WHO-China joint study on the origins of coronavirus.

As the world faces cascading global crises that need international cooperation, Mike Pompeo spent his time in power trying to divide people with lies that would be laughable if they weren't so deadly.

Back in May 2020, Pompeo told ABC that "there is a significant amount of evidence that this (COVID-19) came from that laboratory in Wuhan." The U.S. intelligence community never made such a finding and distanced itself from Pompeo's claim. But this calculated smear continues to live on in the public imagination. And it became a part of the tsunami of smears and misinformation that energized anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers, QAnon believers and election fraud conspiracists, culminating in the U.S. Capitol Riot.

A team of World Health Organization and Chinese experts and scientists on February 9 held a three-hour media conference in Wuhan discussing the findings of the study into the origins of the COVID-19 outbreak. Peter Ben Embarek, a member of the team, dismissed the lab theory.

"Accidents do happen," Embarek recognizes, but he stated that "the findings suggest that the laboratory incidents hypothesis is extremely unlikely to explain the introduction of the virus to the human population" and "there had been no publication or research of this virus or one close to this virus, anywhere in the world." The joint team met with leaders of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and Embarek noted that "It was very unlikely that anything could escape from such a place," citing its safety protocols.

The lab theory "isn't a hypothesis we suggest implies further study," Embarek concluded, "Our initial findings suggest that the introduction through an intermediary host species is the most likely pathway and one that will require more studies and more specific targeted research."

This should've been enough to close the lab conspiracy theory for good.

But the sad fact is, the power of truth has greatly diminished in U.S. politics since the likes of Pompeo grabbed the reins of power. Like a modern Nero playing the fiddle as the world burns around him, Pompeo had used lies to bolster his political ambitions instead of helping the people he had sworn to serve. Pompeo's lies were so outlandish even in an administration that was noted for mendacity.

Hawkish Washington Post columnist Max Boot had selected the former Secretary of State for special attention, dubbing him "Pinocchio Pompeo" in a column skewering the falsehoods in his Twitter feed. It included Pompeo's claim of making the U.S. safer, even though 2020 was one of the deadliest years in U.S. history, with hundreds of thousands of coronavirus deaths. Previous administration's focus on talking tough on China diverted its attention from managing the pandemic. American death toll has exceeded 450,000, and Pompeo is plotting to get on the Republican ticket in 2024.

Outrageous, dangerous lies no longer have political cost in the U.S., even as they cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans. In this sense, hoping that WHO expert testimony will shut down the lies from the Pompeoes in U.S. politics might very well remain just a hope. Likes of Pompeo are likely to continue, emboldened, to clownishly smear China and other perceived enemies, serving their own interest while putting the safety of the people and the integrity of international institutions at risk.

Part I: Has the Biden administration turned a blind eye to the WHO's vindication of China's stance?

Part III: The world must act on science now

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