Former Pence Chief of Staff Short: 'Great possibility' COVID-19 virus came from Wuhan lab

Chief of Staff Marc Short for former Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday there is a "great possibility" the COVID-19 virus came out of a lab in Wuhan, China.

"It seems kind of questionable that the Wuhan lab would be exactly in the same location this virus came from," Short said on Just The News' "The Water Cooler with David Brody." "There's a great, great possibility that that's where it came from."

He said the Trump administration was right to pursue questioning how the virus started. Short also said that while he was working in the White House, there was "conflicting intelligence" about the virus' origins and that the U.S. intelligence community wanted to further investigate the origins of the virus.

China originally said the virus jumped from animal to human at Wuhan market that sold bats and other exotic meat. 

Short, now a co-chairman at Mike Pence's Advancing American Freedom political advocacy group, also argued that "China mishandled" the virus by possibly letting it slip out of a lab and not restricting travel out of the country in the early days of the pandemic.

He joins a growing chorus of Americans, including Washington Democratic and Republican leaders, who in recent weeks have become increasingly skeptical of China's explanation and are pushing for about the virus' origins.