FBI Director: CCP-Affiliated Businesses in the U.S. Conduct Surveillance on Americans and Undermine National Security

Today, Congressman John Moolenaar questioned FBI Director Christopher Wray during a hearing of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Moolenaar asked Wray about how CCP-affiliated businesses are used for espionage in the United States and how the CCP uses those resources to harm America. In his testimony Wray acknowledged there is an almost non-existent line between "the Chinese government and its private sector."

“Director Wray provided testimony today that outlined how the CCP uses its assets in America to advance its agenda and harm our country. Anyone who is serious about protecting America’s economy and national security should listen to Director Wray about the threats we face from the CCP. The MEDC and local officials in Michigan need to realize the serious risks of allowing CCP companies to build facilities in the U.S. and stop the Gotion project,” said Moolenaar after the hearing.

"Buying land, buying businesses, and so forth, while may be legal, can still raise national security concerns because it provides a vehicle for [the CCP] to, if they want to leverage that access, to conduct surveillance or other operations that undermine our national security, and we’ve seen time and time again, where they have used that access, leveraged that access, to do that," said Wray during the hearing.

Yesterday, former Obama Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and former Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo agreed that allowing Gotion to build in Michigan would be a risk to America's national security.

"They will establish a manufacturing unit. They’ll establish whatever they can, and then they will use that for their own intelligence purposes,” said Panetta, the former Obama Defense Secretary.

In an October 27, 2023 letter, Moolenaar called on Wray to answer questions regarding Gotion. In a segment that month on "60 Minutes," Wray stated that the FBI has “seen a variety of efforts by Chinese businesses, some cases state-owned enterprises, some cases ostensibly private companies, attempting to acquire businesses, land, infrastructure, what have you, in the United States in a way that presents national security concerns.”

Video of Moolenaar’s questioning of FBI Director Wray can be found here. A transcript of the questioning can be found below.

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Congressman John Moolenaar: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for being here today. Director Wray, I wanted to follow-up with you on some of the comments that you had made, in addition to the cyber security issues, you talked about the human sources, the insiders, corporate deception, Beijing hiding their hand in corporate joint ventures, and this whole topic of leverage and beholden to the CCP. 

When you appeared in October on “60 Minutes,” you mentioned that you had “seen a variety of efforts by Chinese businesses attempting to acquire businesses, land, and infrastructure in the United States in a way that presents national security concerns.” I saw that and I thought that was a very powerful statement. 

I followed up with a letter to you outlining some concerns I had about an investment in my own district. In my own district there is a company; Gotion which is a CCP-affiliated company. It’s worked with the PLA and many of its top leaders, including the leader of its North American operations, have ties to the CCP. Gotion is wanting to build an electric vehicle battery factory in my district, and it’s been given hundreds of millions of dollars in federal, state, and local tax dollars to do so. To build and operate its factory in my district, Gotion plans to bring 20-50 Chinese nationals to Michigan. If that happens, how confident are you that it will not be used for espionage? In other words, do you believe there is a risk these individuals will be spies working in the United States?

FBI Director Christopher Wray: Well I’d have to drill in deeper on this specific example to be able to weigh in on that, but what I can tell you is that a lot of this ultimately traces back to the blurry, if not non-existent, line between the Chinese government and its “private sector”, and their ability, the Chinese government's ability to, should they choose to leverage that authority, that reach, that access in a way that undermines our national security, which is why acquisitions; buying land, buying businesses, and so forth, while may be legal, can still raise national security concerns because it provides a vehicle for them to, if they want to leverage that access, to conduct surveillance or other operations that undermine our national security, and we’ve seen time and time again, where they have used that access, leveraged that access, to do that and in a way it ties into the operation where you’re talking about this morning which is leveraging in a different sense. 

The access is the problem. We don’t want to wait until they’ve actually stolen whatever the information is. We need to try to get, as they say in the counter-terrorism context, left of boom. 

Moolenaar: How confident are you in the State Department’s vetting process when it comes to Chinese nationals in this country? 

Wray: Well, I am not the expert on State Department processes, and I want to be clear as I said in my opening that our concerns are not just with all Chinese nationals. Our concerns are with the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government. And the Chinese government has shown a willingness to leverage insiders who have no origins in China, for example. So vetting is a very important part of our resilience and our national security, but it is not sufficient in its own right. 

Moolenaar: So, your concern is with the leverage they could do that with Chinese nationals, they could use it other individuals as well. What kind of leverage are you seeing right now, the Chinese Communist Party using in this country? 

Wray: Well, it covers the waterfront right, so I will give one example that is public. So, GE Aviation, a major, public, very sophisticated company entered into a joint venture with, it wasn’t a Chinese company, but the Chinese were able to recruit an insider, at the joint venture. The joint venture was then able to get access to sensitive GE information, which then it used, he used, to help Chinese intelligence officers back in China hack GE’s systems. 

So, you have the joint venture, which enabled the recruitment of the insider, which enabled the cyber hacking, and then for extra credit, the guy was able to essentially cover the tracks because of his insider access. 

Now fortunately, there is a happy ending to that story, because GE did what we want all business to do, had a good relationship with the FBI and our local field office and we were able to essentially run a sting operation back against the Chinese and prevent millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars of R&D from being fleeced by the Chinese and essentially lure an MSS officer who was involved to Brussels where he was arrested and we extradited him and he is now in federal prison. 

That is what we need to happen more often, but it also shows that if a company as sophisticated and big as GE can fall prey to this, what company couldn’t? 

Moolenaar: So, GE did the right thing, if the company was a CCP-affiliated company, would they have done the same thing? 

Wray: I wouldn’t count on it. 

Moolenaar: Thank you.