Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., continued her relentless cross examinations of college administrators Thursday – this time pressing Michigan’s interim president Domenico Grasso on Chinese student spies at the university.
Stefanik wanted to know why Chinese nationals in Michigan were accused of spying on America and his university is not auditing potential national security vulnerabilities in research there.
“Last year, facing congressional pressure, Michigan ended its partnership with Shanghai Jiao Tong University after five Chinese students were caught spying at night and taking illegal photos of U.S. military drills and equipment on the remote Michigan installation Camp Grayling,” Stefanik said. “These students lied and misled U.S. law enforcement about their motives and later conspired on the CCP-controlled messaging app WeChat to clear their phones and cameras of photos and evidence.”
“Has the university conducted a full audit to determine what intellectual property or federally funded research was compromised?” the congresswoman asked.
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Without an audit, Grasso responded, “we are unaware of any research that was compromised by these individual students,” noting the alleged spying occurred “miles and miles away from campus.”
But Stefanik was nonplussed by the answer.
“I understand Camp Grayling is off campus, but was there an audit conducted?”
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Grasso admitted Michigan did not.
“Well, they were not researchers,” he said, doubting “they did something nefarious.” “They were undergraduate students. So, we did not do an audit.”
And, adding, “they did not have any access to any of our research.”
But Stefanik noted they were accused of spying.
“Well, they did do something nefarious off campus,” she said. “I think it would be important for the university to ensure that there is a full audit conducted to make sure that no research, that they didn’t take any nefarious acts there.”
Grasso admitted he does “not know what all of our researchers are involved in,” but doubted the Department of War would clear them for access to U.S. secrets on campus.
“Congresswoman, we have improved, and we’re continuing to improve our background checks for all of our researchers and students that come into the country, but we also have to partner more closely with our federal intelligence community to make sure that these students are vetted before they’re allowed to get visas to enter our country as well,” he concluded.
