China Hacking Threat Rises, Yet FBI Is Mandated to Spend Millions on Zero-Emission Vehicles

FBI Director Christopher Wray told a House panel today that his agency is mandated to spend millions of dollars on acquiring electric vehicles as the hacking threat from China leaves the bureau outgunned.

Wray was testifying before a House appropriations subcommittee about the FBI’s budget request for the coming fiscal year, when Representative Robert Aderholt asked why the bureau requested only a $4.5 million boost to its counterintelligence operations when it had also requested $14.1 million for zero-emission vehicles.

The FBI director responded that his bureau is committed to countering the Chinese espionage threat and that “we have hundreds of millions of dollars in counterintelligence initiatives,” suggesting that the impact of the spending on electric vehicles, which is mandated by an executive order, is minimal.

He also revealed the extent to which FBI personnel are outnumbered by Chinese hackers.

“On the cyber side of the Chinese government, even if all of our cyber personnel did nothing but China — of course there’s a lot else in the cyber world besides just China — the Chinese government hackers would outnumber us 50 to one,” he said. Earlier he had repeated a figure that he often uses in public settings, saying that the last time he checked the numbers, FBI agents are opening a new China-related counterintelligence case every 12 hours.

“I wouldn’t read too much into the difference between the 4.5 versus the 14.1. The 14.1 is simply us implementing an executive order that we, like every agency, are required to,” he said.

The Justice Department recently unveiled charges against two people accused of running a Chinese government police station in New York, in addition to charges against 40 Chinese Ministry of Public Security and cybersecurity agents who ran harassment and espionage campaigns targeting victims in the Chinese diaspora in the U.S.

Yesterday, House Republicans raised questions about the FBI’s response to the Chinese police stations, writing in a letter to Wray that they were “disappointed” that a classified briefing in March failed to address key questions.

Wray told the appropriations panel today that it’s “frankly outrageous that the Chinese government would think they could set up shop here on our soil, and conduct uncoordinated, unsanctioned, illegal law enforcement operations.”