Cotton: FBI Isn’t Doing Enough to Counter Chinese Espionage in U.S., Maybe They Could if They Weren’t Investigating Parents

On Tuesday’s “Hugh Hewitt Show,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) stated that Chinese espionage in the U.S. “probably surpasses anything we ever saw from Soviet Russia” and that the FBI’s domestic counterintelligence to counter this is not sufficient. Cotton also opined that the FBI wasn’t “spending so much time investigating parents at school boards or kicking down the door of conservative journalists at 6:00 in the morning because they published unflattering material about Joe Biden, maybe they’d be able to put a few more agents on the China problem.”

Cotton said the FBI is doing domestic counterintelligence against the CCP, but “not at the volume necessary, just because the volume of Chinese espionage in this country probably surpasses anything we ever saw from Soviet Russia. Partly, that’s just a function of the size of China, its population, and the size of its intelligence services. It’s also a function of how Chinese intelligence works. They’re not just running agents out of their embassy in Washington or consulates around the country. I mean, Chinese nationals on campuses across the country are de facto and sometimes explicit agents of Chinese intelligence monitoring, for instance, Chinese dissidents who are protesting the Chinese Communist Party or Hong Kongers or Uyghurs who are part of the diaspora but still have family back in the grips of the Chinese Communist Party. The threat is present in almost every community, certainly every campus, and most critical companies as well. The FBI is working this problem. They could do more. You know, Hugh, if they weren’t spending so much time investigating parents at school boards or kicking down the door of conservative journalists at 6:00 in the morning because they published unflattering material about Joe Biden, maybe they’d be able to put a few more agents on the China problem.”

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