WASHINGTON, D.C.— Today, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rick Crawford (AR-01) delivered the following opening statement during a hearing to examine how states across the country are addressing counterintelligence (CI) threats at the state level and are developing their own CI capabilities and responses to address these threats in the absence of federal action.

Watch the full committee hearing here.

Chairman Crawford’s Opening Statement as prepared for delivery:

Today’s hearing is focused on understanding the counterintelligence fight facing our nation from the lens of the States. Today we examine the roles of State Fusion Centers in supporting counterintelligence. Further, we will also hear from our fellow state government officials on what they are doing to address expanding, pervasive, and entrenched foreign threats embedded across the whole of society. It is my pleasure to welcome our witnesses to today’s hearing: 

• President of the National Fusion Center Association and Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, Director, Mike Sena;

• Director Alabama Fusion Center, Jay Mosely;

• Senator Eliot Bostar (D), Nebraska’s 29th District, Lincoln;

• Representative Daniel Alvarez (R), Florida 69th District, Hillsborough County;

• and Founder and CEO of State Armour, Michael Lucci. 

The People’s Republic of China has embraced a whole-of-society strategy that extends far beyond traditional espionage. Beijing leverages legal investments, supply chains, research partnerships, cyber intrusions, influence operations, and economic coercion to position itself for advantage long before any traditional conflict ever begins. This is not limited to espionage. It is preparation of the environment, and our homeland has become an increasingly contested domain.

The scale is staggering. Former Director Wray testified that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was opening a new China-related counterintelligence case every twelve hours, with over 5,000 active CI cases nationwide, half of which were tied to the Chinese government. 

This also includes transnational repression reaching into our own communities. In 2023, the FBI arrested two men running a secret Chinese Ministry of Public Security “police station” out of a Manhattan office, one of more than a hundred such outposts identified worldwide, used to surveil and coerce dissidents living on American soil. 

The PRC is so emboldened and comfortable operating in the U.S. that it established brick and mortar establishments to conduct repression of its critics within our borders. 

Iran and Russia too have escalated toward violence. Since 2022, the Justice Department has unsealed multiple state-sponsored assassination plots on U.S. soil, including Iranian schemes to kill a presidential candidate and an Iranian-American journalist, and a Russian-linked attempt against a CIA informant. These are not espionage in the traditional sense. They are foreign intelligence services treating American streets as a battlespace.

To win without firing a shot, the PRC for two decades has extended their penetration efforts beyond targeting Washington circles, endangering our states, our communities, and our universities, often gaining access to airspace and critical infrastructure. 

Much of this activity unfolds in the gray zone — below the threshold of armed conflict, or even criminal activity. Put simply, often their activities are legal and deliberately structured that way. Adversaries cloak these efforts as commercial hybrid threats, shell investments, front companies, and seemingly ordinary transactions blending state intent with private cover. 

This is why we are holding this open hearing, a format not often available to the Intelligence Committee. I am deeply concerned our next 9/11-level event has already been set in motion in the counterintelligence domain. Our adversaries have prepositioned capabilities inside our critical infrastructure and telecommunications networks that could be activated at a time of their choosing. Campaigns like Volt Typhoon are not hypothetical. They are evidence of preparation happening today.

The American people need greater awareness of these threats to freedom, security, and our way of life if the federal and state governments, the private sector, and the people are to effectively counter these threats.

Our panelists are vital to this because the first indicators will rarely appear in Washington. 

They may surface in a county zoning office, a university research partnership, a port authority, a sheriff’s investigation of suspicious drone activity, or a fusion center connecting threads no single agency can see alone.

State, local, and tribal elements are indispensable partners. Our efforts must complement each other’s to deny adversaries the permissive, ambiguous operating environments they depend on. 

Last week, I held the Committee’s fourth counterintelligence-related roundtable discussion at the state level in Huntsville, Alabama, preceded by roundtable events in Florida, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas.  

These events are part of the Committee’s ongoing efforts to bring the U.S. counterintelligence threat discussion to the state and local level.

The federal government cannot solve it alone. Winning this fight requires a true national effort.

I thank our witnesses for their service and look forward to their testimony.

With that, I would like to yield to the distinguished Ranking Member, Mr. Himes, for his opening statement. 

###