FBI Director Christopher Wray said that China is the greatest counterintelligence threat facing the U.S. but warned that Russia is a close runner-up as Moscow remains focused on disrupting the upcoming presidential election.
Chairman Lindsey Graham of South Carolina asked Wray about China during his Tuesday testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Wray replied that “there is no country that poses a more severe counterintelligence threat to this country right now.” Wray added that the second greatest counterintelligence challenge was “probably Russia.”
Explaining the difference between his rankings, Wray said the distinction was that “China is fighting a generational fight here” and said that the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party were using their government officials, private sector entities, and “nontraditional collectors” in a coordinated effort to “steal their way up the economic ladder at our expense.”
“We have, as we speak, probably about 1,000-plus investigations all across the country involving attempted theft of U.S. intellectual property, whether it’s economic espionage or counterproliferation, almost all leading back to China,” Wray testified.
Emphasizing his point, Wray called the threat posed by China “deep and diverse and wide and vexing.”
“So we’re working extremely hard with all of our partners to combat it,” Wray said. “But make no mistake, this is a high, high priority for all of us.”
Graham also asked whether Russia was still trying to interfere in the U.S. election system.
“The Russians are absolutely intent on trying to interfere with our elections through foreign influence,” Wray answered.
“Is it fair to say that everything we’ve done against Russia has not deterred them enough?” Graham asked. “All the sanctions. All the talk. They’re still at it.”
“Well my view is that, until they stop, they haven’t been deterred enough,” Wray said.
Regarding whether the FBI had the resources and authority that it needed to deal with this challenge, Wray seemed to say that the bureau was prepared to handle it, especially if Trump’s budget request goes through.
“From our lane, of course, at the FBI, our primary focus is on the malign foreign influence piece, and there’s a separate election infrastructure piece that DHS deals with the states,” Wray said. “We feel that we have significant resources devoted to the foreign influence piece, and the president’s budget that’s currently up before the Congress asks for additional resources to help us do that.”
Wray’s comments about Russian election interference came on the eve of special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony in front of the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees. After a two-year investigation, Mueller concluded that Russia had interfered in the 2016 presidential election in a variety of ways, but he did not establish any sort of conspiracy or coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.
