Outgoing FBI Director Christopher Wray said the Chinese government poses the greatest long-term threat to the United States.
During an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday, Wray said China’s cyber program is larger than those operated by all other major countries combined and has stolen more personal and corporate data from Americans than all nations combined.
“There’s another part of the Chinese cyber threat that I think has not gotten the attention publicly that I think it desperately deserves,” Wray told interviewer Scott Pelley. “And that is the Chinese government’s pre-positioning on American civil critical infrastructure, to lie in wait on those networks, to be in a position to wreak havoc and inflict a real-world harm at a time and place of their choosing.”
He said the Chinese government has installed malware into networks for U.S. water treatment plants, transportation systems the electrical grid, natural gas pipelines and telecommunications systems.
Wray’s interview comes about a week before he is set to resign. Wray announced in December that he would leave the agency before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration next week — nearly three years before the end of his 10-year term. Trump has nominated FBI critic Kash Patel to lead the agency.
“The president-elect had made clear that he intended to make a change, and the law is that that is something he is able to do for any reason or no reason at all,” Wray said. “My conclusion was that the thing that was best for the bureau was to try to do this in an orderly way, to not thrust the FBI deeper into the fray.”
Trump appointed Wray in 2017 after firing former FBI Director James Comey, who led the agency’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign schemed with Russia to win the 2016 election. Trump turned on Wray when the FBI again investigated him over an alleged plot to overturn the 2020 election.
“Our job as investigators at the FBI is to follow the facts wherever they lead, no matter who likes it,” Wray said. “I add that last part because one of the things that I’ve seen over my 7½ years as FBI director is that people often claim to be very interested in independence and objectivity until independence and objectivity lead to an outcome they don’t like. You know, truth is truth, not necessarily what ether sides wants it to be.”