Former Trump Advisor: China Has Enough Stolen Data to ‘Build a Dossier on Every Single American Adult’

The flag of China flies behind a security camera over the Chinese Consulate in San Francis
AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

Matthew Pottinger, a former national security advisor to President Trump, revealed in Senate testimony this week that the Chinese Communist Party has enough stolen data on American citizens to “build a dossier on every single American adult.”

During a Senate Select Intelligence Committee hearing, Pottinger detailed the extent to which China has stolen data from the United States to undertake an enormous surveillance operation of foreign citizens, including Americans.

“Assembling dossiers on people has always been a feature of Leninist regimes, but Bejing’s penetration of digital networks worldwide, including using 5G networks … has really taken this to a new level,” Pottinger said:

The [Chinese Communist] Party now compiles dossiers on millions of foreign citizens around the world using the material that it gathers to influence and target and intimidate, reward, blackmail, flatter, humiliate, and ultimately divide and conquer. [Emphasis added]

Beijing has stolen sensitive data sufficient to build a dossier on every single American adult and on many of our children too, who are fair game under Bejing’s rules of political warfare. [Emphasis added]

Among other solutions, Pottinger suggested the U.S. “stop funding technologies in China that are used to advance the surveillance state and the military of Beijing.” He went on:

The executive orders that were issued by the Trump and Biden administrations that prohibit the U.S. purchase of stocks and bonds in 59 Chinese companies is a good start but the Treasury Department really needs to expand that list by orders of magnitude in order to better encompass the galaxy of Chinese companies that are developing these so-called dual-use technologies.

In June, a Republican House Intelligence Committee investigation discovered that China’s influence on corporate America has increased significantly, as Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong reported:

The investigation has determined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — via its control over Chinese business firms — is manipulating and coercing U.S. businesses into sharing key technologies with China and helping Beijing acquire sensitive intellectual property, which benefits China-based firms at the expense of U.S. industry. [Emphasis added]

It has also found Chinese officials are giving guidance and direction to U.S. businesses to influence their business operations, investment strategy, and strategic directions to the benefit of China. [Emphasis added]

Members of China’s military, as Breitbart News has extensively chronicled, have been used to allegedly steal research conducted at American universities by first arriving in the U.S. on student visa programs like F-1 and J-1 visas.

In response, Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Mike Braun (R-IN) reintroduced legislation in June that would ban the federal government from issuing student visas to members of China’s military.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here

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