GOP Lawmaker Seeks to Hold DOJ Accountable for Its Efforts Countering Chinese Espionage

Then-Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Sen. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau), (R), calls for session to end as State Sen. Leah Vukmir (R-Brookfield) looks on during a contentious legislative session on Dec. 4, 2018 in Madison, Wisconsin. (Andy Manis/Getty Images)

A Republican U.S. congressman is proposing that the Department of Justice (DOJ) be held accountable for countering and reporting on threats from the Chinese regime in the aftermath of the Biden administration’s cancellation of the Trump-era China Initiative anti-espionage program.

The China Initiative Accountability Report Act (H.R. 7325), which was introduced by Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.), would “direct the Attorney General to prepare a report on the Department of Justice activities related to countering Chinese national security threats, and for other purposes.” He led Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), and Scott Franklin (R-Fla.) in announcing the effort.

In February, the DOJ announced that it was ending its “China Initiative,” a Trump-era program aimed at preventing espionage activity by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and more. Fitzgerald told The Epoch Times that the Biden administration’s decision to nix the strategy was part of “a knee-jerk reaction to anything coming out of the Trump administration.”

The move to end the initiative became “the real genesis” of H.R. 7325, Fitzgerald said. As his congressional office began putting together the proposal, he said there was “a good response” from other judiciary and leadership personnel who understood that a report might help thwart national security threats from the Chinese regime.

He says an annual DOJ report to describe activities and operations related to countering the Chinese regime’s national security threats and espionage in the United States would become “quite valuable at this juncture,” considering how much the regime has infiltrated and taken advantage of American resources for years.

Fitzgerald emphasized that “there is truly a genuine national security concern when it comes to the Chinese regime.” He is particularly concerned about the theft of trade secrets, intellectual property and research theft, and threats from others, including researchers in laboratories, at universities, and at defense industrial base facilities.

“There are also many other examples, [resulting in] criminal charges and convictions of individuals guilty of grant fraud, visa fraud, and lying to federal prosecutors,” he said.

Too Threatening to Dismantle

The premise of a bill to “hold those responsible for protecting [the United States] from [the Chinese regime] is not only advisable, but absolutely essential—especially in light of the Biden administration’s decision to terminate the program that was already underway.” Frank Gaffney, executive chairman and founder of the Center for Security Policy, a Washington-based think tank, told The Epoch Times.

Gaffney considers it “completely unconscionable that the China Initiative is not simply being deemphasized but entirely dismantled.”

He noted the longstanding threat of the Chinese regime, pointing out that Beijing has engaged in unrestricted warfare against the United States for more than 20 years.

“And today,” he said, “the country is now facing the greatest threat in its history from the CCP.”

Gaffney said the DOJ and FBI should be “relentlessly pursuing” whatever evidence they can to establish and illustrate how the Chinese regime is “waging war inside the United States through its penetration of research institutes, academic centers, laboratories, through the theft of intellectual property, and more.” Accordingly, he said, “this should be job number one for the DOJ and FBI.”

Evidence Ignored, Threat Advanced

At the end of last year, Charles Lieber, the former chair of chemistry at Harvard University, was convicted of making false statements in connection with funding received from China and his links to a Chinese state-sponsored recruitment plan that U.S. officials have said facilitates the transfer of U.S. technology and know-how to China.

Fitzgerald said Lieber’s case appeared to “fall on deaf ears,” explaining that “it certainly didn’t rise to the level of significance that it needed to.” He said this was merely one example of the “concrete evidence that something needs to be done [to] confront an abundance of threats to the national security of the United States.”

The text of H.R. 7325 points out several “pervasive and growing threats to United States domestic national security” by the CCP. These include trade secret theft, economic espionage, threats to critical infrastructure and supply chains, and more.

“The threats are not only coming from a Chinese regime across the Pacific but can also be placed at the hands of agents of influence or ‘useful idiots’ in our own country that are aiding and abetting them,” Gaffney said.

The United States has been “deeply compromised by the CCP,” he added. “And when you have a commander-in-chief, the president of the United States, dismantling a China Initiative that appeared to be working, it speaks volumes about the degree to which the country is positioning itself to move itself closer to mortal peril.”

Justice Department officials didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.