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| China Bombshell: Patel says Biden-era FBI ‘buried' truth about CCP's ties to biolab on US soil | ||
| 2026-02-07 | ||
FBI Director Kash Patel says his agency has resumed an aggressive counterintelligence offensive against China and its Communist Party (CCP) that had been sidelined during the Biden presidency but is concerned the prior administration may have "buried" the truth about dangerous biolabs on U.S. soil tied to Beijing. “This FBI, under this leadership, has prioritized the threat against it by the CCP against us, and we've taken swift action,” Patel said Friday in an interview with the Just the News, No Noise television show that focused on China’s threat to U.S. national security and the bureau’s efforts to handle the Chinese Communist Party. The FBI boss said the renewed efforts have already resulted in a 40% increase in Chinese espionage arrests in the first year of the second Trump administration. “What we did in the last year with President Trump and the attorney general and the Department of Justice is reprioritize our dynamic threat landscape, going after and disrupting and looking after the criminal activity from the CCP,” he explained. Just the News reported this week that an illegal biolab in California searched by local, state, and federal authorities in 2023 and a separate hazardous lab inside a Las Vegas garage raided by the FBI over the weekend are both tied to a Chinese national currently awaiting trial for fraud, false statements, and adulteration of medical devices, according to court filings, police officials and members of Congress. Just the News also reported on findings by the conservative American Accountability Foundation that raised concerns that at least 20 Chinese scientists ensconced inside American academia and at cutting-edge U.S. labs appear to be members of the CCP, are affiliated with Chinese projects aimed at stealing U.S. technology, or are involved with universities or companies tied to the People’s Liberation Army and Beijing's defense sector.
Those research ties are even more concerning given the discoveries in 2023 in Reedley, Calif., and 2026 in Las Vegas, Nev., of the two illicit, makeshift biolabs that are suspected of using dangerous pathogens, said Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health. "When you do research like this, potentially in an environment where there's very little biosecurity, you're posing hazards to everyone around you. And the fact is these were completely flying under the radar screen," Bhattacharya told Just the News. "We need a better system for detecting and preventing these kinds of labs from popping up, so that they don't cause the kind of havoc, the sort of the worst kinds of stories," he added. Bhattacharya declined to speculate on the motivations behind setting up risky biolabs in California and Vegas, but stressed that “it's very, very dangerous what defined the kinds of agents that have been reported publicly." CONCERNS BIDEN-ERA FBI MISLED PUBLIC ON BIOLAB TIES TO CHINA Patel promised complete transparency on the Vegas lab incident but raised concern that his predecessor, former Director Christopher Wray, and others in the Biden administration may have misled the public about the Chinese government's ties to the California biolab incident in 2023. "If you recall, a similar incident in Reedley, California from a few years ago was evidently buried by the prior administration, and they said it had no connection to the CCP," he said. “When we discovered that, we took swift action to course correct the intelligence and figure out why the American public was misled by individuals in this institution, including my predecessor. We're going to get to the bottom of it. We're just awaiting the lab results, and we're going to keep going," he said. He added that under his leadership the FBI would not do the same with information about the Vegas lab. “We knew about this information and worked with the state law enforcement authorities there in Las Vegas to execute these search warrants and collect over 1000 samples of material that has now been sent back to the FBI lab for analysis,” Patel said. “And this is something that we're going to keep continuing to uncover." Jia Bei Zhu was arrested in 2023 on allegations he was running an illegal biological laboratory in Reedley, Calif. On Saturday, the FBI and local police raided a similar biolab in Vegas, arresting the home’s property manager, Ori Salomon. Police and lawmakers say the two labs are closely connected. Related: Jia Bei Zhu 02/04/2026 Cops raid suspected Chinese-run biolab in Las Vegas with thousands of vials labeled 'HIV' and 'malaria' Jia Bei Zhu 06/24/2025 Is China Targeting The American Food Supply? Jia Bei Zhu 08/16/2024 Federal authorities file additional charges against Chinese-linked biolab in Central California | ||
| Posted by:Skidmark |