Washington D.C. – Congressman Michael McCaul (R-TX), Republican Leader of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Chairman of the China Task Force, joined Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” with Bret Baier to discuss the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston as well as the Chinese Communist Party’s espionage efforts across the United States. 

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On closing the Chinese consulate in Houston: “Well, we’re going to have a classified briefing tomorrow. What I can tell you, it’s really the epicenter of China’s espionage in terms of stealing our biomedical research. We had three scientists at MD Anderson that were fired due to allegations of espionage. We also have a lot of vaccine research going on at the Texas Medical Center. We know that they’re actively trying to steal that vaccine so they can claim to the world that they saved them from the very virus that they are responsible for. So it’s really a hub for a lot of technology, a lot of research. In the San Francisco case where you have a scientist under the PLA, their military, come in and now take refuge in the consulate, that is really unprecedented. But Bret, it’s been going on for a long time. We just now have an administration that’s taking them head on.”

On the CCP’s widespread spy efforts in the US: “Their highest priority right now is to steal our research on the vaccine, on COVID-19 that they’re responsible for. I applaud the FBI, and you know I worked in the Justice Department many years ago. I had the Johnny Chung case in 1997, Bret, that led us to the director of Chinese intelligence and China Aerospace putting money in its Hong Kong bank account to influence the Clinton campaign. My point is this is nothing new, they have been doing this for decades but they really ramped up their game right now. This is the tip of the iceberg. They have, I would argue, thousands of researchers in this country, they got in through the Thousand Talent program and other programs that are conducting espionage probably as we speak.”

On Administration efforts holding the CCP accountable: “We finally have a Justice Department that’s willing to take them head on and deal with the threat and Secretary Pompeo did the right thing, I think, in closing down the Houston consulate which was being used, I think as, again, sort of a spy center from Texas to Florida, and the images of them burning documents in their – in the middle of this building outside – watching them burn documents, destroying the evidence at the scene of the crime was absolutely outrageous.”

On the CCP’s escalation: “Xi has no interest in being in the family of nations. He cares about world domination. They are our biggest, long-term threat to our national security and we didn’t escalate this, Bret. They did. They have been escalating it for decades by stealing billions of dollars of intellectual property from the United States. Stealing everything that we have and now the vaccine research itself. I think the President just said enough is enough, we’re going to close down this spy operation in Houston until they can behave. Bad behavior – you don’t reward it. There should be consequences. They stole 23 million security clearances, including my own, under the Obama administration and guess what was done? Nothing. We have never taken them on for their misbehavior, and now we are.”

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