(NewsNation) — A new report reveals how federal agencies failed when investigating an illegal biolab in California run by a Chinese fugitive.
The House Select Committee on China published its final report Wednesday showing failures on the part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies, including the FBI, in catching or preventing a hazardous lab being run in California.
The lab was run by a Chinese fugitive, with backing from the Chinese government.
“These gaps allowed a wanted fugitive from Canada, who is a People’s Republic of China national and who’d previously stolen millions of dollars in American intellectual property, to operate an illegal facility that contained thousands of vials of potentially infectious agents,” the report reads.
The committee learned the man, Jiabel Zhu, had vials labeled “ebola.” Some were labeled in Mandarin and other samples weren’t labeled at all.
Everything from malaria to a COVID-19 strain to E.Coli was found, with at least 20 different harmful agents present.
At least 1,000 lab mice that had been genetically modified for testing were found along with the material. None of it was authorized for Zhu’s lab in Reedley, California.
“According to local officials, the CDC refused to speak with them and, on a number of occasions, it was reported by local officials that the CDC hung up on them mid-conversation,” the Congressional report said.
Local officials went to Congressman Jim Costa for help. Only then was he able to get the CDC to take them seriously.
But the CDC had chemical agents destroyed without ever testing the samples, the committee pointed out, so it’s impossible to truly know what else might have been in the lab or how much danger Americans faced as a result.
Rep. Mike Gallagher, chairman of the committee, told NewsNation he fears federal intelligence and law enforcement might not grasp just how complex China’s covert activity in the U.S. is already or the extent of the country’s illegal activity. He worries that may be preventing the U.S. from effectively fighting it.
“It could be a resource issue. It could be an expertise issue,” he said. “It’s this combination of traditional espionage, economic coercion, influence activities, what they use to capture foreign elites. We’ve seen them subvert our Foreign Agent Registration Act laws or lobbying disclosure regulations in order to turn the DC swamp against itself. So that’s what concerns me going forward.”
Gallagher was critical of the FBI for not handling the lab case properly. He said he knows the agency means well and takes the China threat very seriously. He just fears the FBI may not be fully equipped to fight it.
A CDC official with knowledge of the investigation said the agency strongly disputes the report.
“The report includes numerous inaccuracies, including both the charge that CDC did not respond to local requests for aid and the false implication that CDC had the authority to unilaterally investigate or seize samples from PBI’s Reedley building,” they said.
