POMPEO: Chinese Communist Spies Are Here, Embedded Deep in the Far-Left Administrative State

For four years, the Trump Administration dealt with the “Russia collusion” hoax, during which the mainstream press and progressive politicians united to push the lie that our team was acting to advance the interests of the Kremlin.  Ironically, it turns out that not only was the Russia collusion narrative complete fiction, but it is also the case that many top progressive leaders have been aiding and abetting – through incompetence or more nefarious reasons – actual, real espionage operations orchestrated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

I warned about this very threat years ago during my time as Secretary of State at the National Governors Association in 2020 – an association chaired by then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.  It appears that neither Governor Cuomo nor his successor, Kathy Hochul, took my warnings seriously.

This week, Linda Sun, an aide who had served in the offices of both Cuomo and Hochul, was charged with acting as an agent of the Chinese Communist Party.  In the unsealed indictment, it was revealed that Sun – an American citizen – and her husband had received millions in laundered cash from the Chinese Communist Party and, in return, “worked to further the interests of the Chinese government and the CCP.”  Among her many treasonous activities, Sun had worked to block Taiwanese officials from being able to contact the governor’s office since 2016, ensured content in speeches and press releases accorded with CCP-approved language, granted CCP officials access to high-level state government discussions such as COVID response efforts, and even personally participated – in the capacity of a senior New York state official – in the CCP-organized protest against the democratically-elected president of Taiwan who was visiting New York City.

This is exactly how the CCP operates, and its influence in America extends far beyond just the New York governor’s office.  A CCP spy worked for the late Senator Dianne Feinstein for 20 years, even attending Chinese consulate meetings for her.  Rep. Eric Swalwell – one of the leading purveyors of the Russia hoax – had enjoyed a close relationship with CCP spy Christine Fang during his time as a local city council member.  That same spy had also targeted other up-and-coming politicians across California and the Midwest.  It was recently revealed that Rep. Elissa Slotkin – a progressive currently running for an important Senate seat in Michigan – signed an NDA with Gotion, a CCP-backed green energy firm, during her time in Congress.  Democrat Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz has an extensive history of engagement with CCP-backed entities, which should absolutely be investigated.

As for Kamala Harris, you can literally count on one hand the number of times she has mentioned the Chinese Communist Party on the campaign trail.  She won’t dare say a bad word about China.  The American people should ask why.

Last year, Biden welcomed CCP Chairman Xi Jinping to San Francisco with open arms, feting him as if he were a conquering king.  We now know that in the days surrounding that conference, Chinese diplomats were also working with pro-CCP diaspora groups here in the United States to intimidate, harass, and silence Americans who protested Xi Jinping’s policies – many of whom were first, second, or third-generation Chinese-American immigrants who know better than anyone just how wicked the CCP truly is.

This is what the CCP does: It seeks to influence every level of our society, from the federal government to our universities, to state senates and even PTA meetings.

We cannot treat this threat as something that is far away, across a vast ocean.  The CCP is inside the gates.

We took several steps toward confronting this during my time in the Trump Administration.  Confucius Institutes had proliferated on college campuses across our country, spreading the CCP’s propaganda to our younger generations.  We stopped nearly all of it by designating the Confucius Institute program a foreign mission – though we only scratched the surface in combating Beijing’s influence operations within our universities.

We placed the same designation on the National Association for China’s Peaceful Unification, a group that answers to the CCP-controlled United Front Work Department and coordinates “Sister City” programs with metropolitan areas all over America and the world.  We also shut down the largest espionage effort in U.S. history when we closed down the CCP’s consulate in Houston, TX, from which CCP agents had been coordinating massive levels of industrial espionage and intellectual property theft.

Biden and Harris have failed to follow up on our efforts, and in some cases, they’ve actively reversed them.  Early last year, a Chinese spy balloon was allowed to traverse the continental United States before finally being shot down off the coast of South Carolina. The Biden-Harris Administration did not hold the CCP accountable. Inexplicably, Biden-Harris also shut down the China Initiative, an anti-espionage program started in the Trump Administration focused solely on the CCP’s malign activities.  And, the open southern border has allowed tens of thousands of Chinese nationals – many of them military-aged males – to cross into our country illegally with no real safeguards.

America will only be secure if our relationship with China is centered on the understanding of the CCP’s ideological hostility toward America, on transparency and reciprocity.  If American entities cannot buy land in China next to a Chinese military base, we should not allow it to happen here.  If American firms must consent to technology transfers and CCP overwatch to do business in China, it should not be so easy for Chinese firms to do business here.  If our diplomats cannot freely and privately communicate with Chinese citizens, we should have no tolerance whatsoever for CCP officials doing the same with American citizens.  The list goes on and on.  We are throwing our gates open to our enemies.  It must stop, and it will only stop if we elect leaders at all levels of our government who see this threat clearly and will keep America free and safe.

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