The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee is the latest on Capitol Hill to criticize the Biden Department of Justice’s decision to end its Trump-era China Initiative, which had aimed to combat the growing national security threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party.
Sen. Chuck Grassley joined a growing chorus of congressional Republicans blasting the move announced last week by Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, the head of the DOJ’s National Security Division. Olsen said he was shelving the effort directed at pushing back on China’s economic espionage following a year of criticism from some fellow Democrats, hundreds of university professors, some left-wing and Chinese American activists, and the CCP itself.
“I write with deep concern over your decision to cancel the China Initiative, a strategic prioritization of investigations of national security threats originating from the Chinese Communist Party,” Grassley wrote to Olsen on Monday. “I urge you to reconsider.”
Grassley said “China is undoubtedly the top source of all espionage investigations,” as he pointed to the Justice Department’s claims that 80% of all economic espionage prosecutions brought by the DOJ are instances that would have benefited China and that there is at least some nexus to China in 60% of trade secret theft cases. He also noted FBI Director Christopher Wray’s testimony that the bureau opens a new Chinese espionage case every 12 hours.
“My oversight work has also focused on Confucius Institutes and what DOJ as well as DHS are doing to combat China’s efforts to use our academic environment for their propaganda efforts,” Grassley said, adding that his oversight work “has confirmed to me and my colleagues that the communist Chinese government is clearly the greatest threat to the U.S. research field and the protection of our intellectual property.”
GOP RIPS BIDEN DOJ’S DECISION TO END TRUMP-ERA CHINA CRACKDOWN
Olsen claimed last week that the program spurred the perception that the Department of Justice applies a lower standard to investigate and prosecute criminal suspects with ties to China.
Tossing the China Initiative overboard came after many Republicans had already accused Attorney General Merrick Garland of softening enforcement of the initiative.
But Democrats in the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus said they had met with Olsen prior to his decision.
“By starting with a focus on researchers and scientists who are ethnically Chinese, the China Initiative not only engaged in blatant racial profiling but also reinforced harmful stereotypes that Asian Americans are ‘perpetual others’ who cannot be trusted, ruining numerous lives in the process,” Democratic Rep. Judy Chu said.
Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu also celebrated the end of the initiative when he claimed, “Since the program was created in 2018, multiple professors and academics have been targeted by law enforcement because of their race.”
The claims by Democrats contradicted what Olsen said in a speech.
“In the course of my review, I never saw any indication — none — that any decision that the Justice Department made was based on bias or prejudice of any kind,” the Biden DOJ official said last week. “This was a concern that I understand, and I appreciate that perception, but I didn’t see that in any of the cases or any of the decisions that were made.”
Grassley also pointed to Olsen’s January decision to create a new domestic terrorism unit at the DOJ, when the Biden official announced that “investigating and prosecuting domestic violent extremists is one of our top priorities.”
“These actions suggest that at least some of your decisions as Assistant Attorney General are governed more by partisan pressure, however unfounded, than by expert advice to promote national security,” Grassley argued, adding, “You have delivered an extremely clear message: the Department values certain political appearances over national security and public service.”
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Former President Donald Trump himself weighed in on the initiative being shut down during the Conservative Political Action Conference over the weekend in Florida.
“Well, I’m surprised they did. We were very careful with that. And China, as you know, is a very big player, but it can be a very dangerous player in so many ways, especially in that,” Trump told reporters, adding, “I don’t think we should be doing that, but that’s what they want to do. I think it’s a big mistake.”
The CCP has attacked the China Initiative relentlessly and has also seized on U.S.-based efforts by professors and activists to end it.
Wray said this month that the growing economic and national security threat posed by the CCP is graver than ever, likening the danger to a more technologically sophisticated Soviet Union, arguing that “there is just no country that presents a broader threat to our ideas, our innovation, and our economic security than China.”
