AG William Barr: China Far Bigger Threat Than Russia, ‘One of Our Highest Priorities’ in Counterintelligence

Appearing Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s The Ingraham Angle, Attorney General William Barr said China is waging a “full-court blitzkrieg” effort against the U.S. political system, posing a larger threat to the country than Russia.

A partial transcript is as follows: 

LAURA INGRAHAM: This virus originated in China, we still don’t have all the data, we still don’t really know about patient zero in China. A lot of that data is being withheld, still, from the United States, and top medical people are saying that. What about the Justice Department getting involved more, I guess obviously, to the American people in this battle against the ongoing propaganda machine of China in the United States at our universities, in businesses — hey, in the White House Press Room the other day.

ATTORNEY GENERAL WILLIAM BARR: Yes, the Department is heavily engaged in that. In fact, that’s one of our highest priorities in the counterintelligence realm, counterespionage realm, and protection of trade secrets is our activity’s directed to defend against the Chinese. The Chinese are engaged in a full-court blitzkrieg of stealing American technology, trying to influence our political system, trying to steal secrets at our research universities and so forth — and we are focused on it. We have something we call the China Initiative. We’ve brought a lot of indictments, but it’s something that we also have to expose by letting the business community understand exactly the nature of the threat.

INGRAHAM: Given what you know today about the panoply of abuses, internationally, against the United States, who is the bigger threat to America’s election security: Russia or China?

ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: In my opinion it’s China. And not just to the election process, but I think across the board there’s simply no comparison. China is a very serious threat to the United States geopolitically, economically, militarily, and a threat to the integrity of our institutions given their ability to influence things.