House Launches ‘Government-Wide’ Probe Into Federal Response to CCP ‘Political Warfare’

House Oversight & Accountability Committee Chair Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) announced March 13 that his panel has launched “a government-wide investigation” into the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “ongoing efforts to target, influence, and infiltrate every sector and community in the United States.”

“Without firing a single bullet,” he said, “the Chinese Communist Party is waging war against the U.S. by targeting, influencing, and infiltrating every economic sector and community in America.

“We know,” Mr. Comer continued, “that this coordinated influence and infiltration campaign by the CCP threatens U.S. military readiness, the technology sector, financial markets, agriculture industry, education systems, and intellectual property. The lives and security of all Americans are affected.”

In the coming months, the chairman said his panel will conduct several hearings “to address this national security threat.” He sent letters to nine federal agencies calling on them to “provide information on how they are combatting CCP warfare.”

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“The committee seeks information about what the U.S. Department of Justice is doing to protect Americans from the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) ambitions for global dominance,” the letter states. “This includes [DOJ’s] efforts to safeguard targeted communities, including American businesses, Chinese Americans, and our country’s justice system from CCP political warfare.

To effectively address the subversive infiltration presented by “Beijing’s challenge,” Mr. Comer said officials must be “clear in public about the actions and intentions of the Chinese party-state” and be “publicly accountable for the actions the U.S. government takes in response.”

Mr. Comer notes in the letter to Mr. Vilsack that “it has been reported that ‘China has breached the inner walls of the U.S. agriculture industry in what has arguably been the most expansive heist in farming history and is currently attempting to steal or hack every conceivable facet of U.S. agriculture technology.’”

Mr. Comer makes similar entreaties in letters to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

In each, he concludes, the committee “implores each federal agency to uphold its duty to the American communities for whom they are responsible.”

Mr. Comer specifically requests the National Science Foundation (NSF) to discuss “foreign government talent recruitment programs” and what it is doing “to ensure its efforts effectively counteract serious threats posed by the CCP to American research security.”