FBI Intensifies Fight Against Foreign Espionage Under Trump: Director Kash Patel

‘Our adversaries are always looking to steal our secrets, to co-opt our citizens, and have them steal our secrets,’ Patel said.

FBI Director Kash Patel speaks during an interview with Epoch TV’s “American Thought Leaders” host Jan Jekielek, at the FBI headquarters in Washington on Aug. 4, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

The FBI has been “laser-focused” on countering foreign espionage activities in the United States under President Donald Trump’s directive, according to the agency’s director, Kash Patel.

In an interview with Epoch TV’s “American Thought Leaders” that will air on Aug. 8, Patel discussed his agency’s recent achievement in seizing 13 domains in an alleged Chinese spy scheme and removing 62 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) spies this year.

“The FBI, since I’ve been in the seat, has seen a 55 percent increase in espionage arrests alone—55 percent from the last 16 months that I’ve been in compared to the prior two years of the Biden administration,” Patel said.

“That’s a massive uptick, but that just shows you that we are laser-focused pursuant to the president’s directive to stop espionage activities, no matter who the source is, who the actor is, whatever form it comes in.”

The FBI’s Counterintelligence Division has been at the forefront of investigating and combating espionage activities, he explained.

“Our adversaries are always looking to steal our secrets, to co-opt our citizens, and have them steal our secrets and send them back to places like Russia, China, DPRK, Iran, just to name a few,” he said.

Patel, who served on the National Security Council during the first Trump administration in 2019, identified China’s espionage as one of the top U.S. national security concerns during his Senate confirmation hearing in January 2025. At the time, he said “CCP espionage” was “running rampant” in the United States, including against U.S. cyberinfrastructure.

In March 2025, less than a month after Patel was sworn in, the Justice Department announced charges against 12 Chinese nationals, including law enforcement officials, employees of a private company, and mercenary hackers. Among their targets were dissidents and news organizations, including The Epoch Times.

In a public alert issued alongside the charges, the FBI warned that Beijing was leveraging freelance hackers and information security companies to compromise computer networks worldwide, a tactic that also offered the Chinese regime a layer of plausible deniability.

Last month, Patel shared a video on X announcing that the FBI had forced 62 removals of Chinese spies in 2026, which he said “completely shattered Beijing’s deep cover operations.”

“We are arresting people nearly every week on espionage matters,” Patel said.

Patel explained that in espionage cases, the first priority is to “disrupt”—to stop adversaries from using the avenues through which they carry out espionage against Americans. The next step, he said, is to “prosecute every single one of them where we can.”

Those who “don’t meet the criminal threshold,” he added, including foreign nationals who have been co-opted, would instead be expelled from the United States.

Military Secrets Sold

Numerous criminal cases have implicated U.S. military personnel in recent years.

Wei Jinchao, a former U.S. Navy sailor who served aboard the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Essex, was sentenced to 200 months in prison in January for espionage. Prosecutors said he provided a Chinese intelligence officer with about 60 technical and operational manuals related to U.S. Navy ships, along with dozens of photographs and documents about the Navy and his assignments aboard the Essex. In exchange, he received more than $12,000.

Seth Chambers, a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence analyst, was indicted on two counts of willful transmission of national defense information in March. He allegedly provided classified information to two individuals, including one believed to be in China.

Patel said the FBI had also been seizing domains and other internet infrastructure and shutting them down. In other words, he said, the bureau was “basically turning off the energy, the power” that adversaries relied on to carry out their espionage activities.

In June, the Justice Department announced that the FBI had seized 13 websites allegedly used by Chinese intelligence operatives to recruit current or former U.S. government and U.S. military employees with access to classified and sensitive information. According to an FBI affidavit, these websites “are often linked or referenced within the entities’ job postings on LinkedIn and other hiring platforms.”

The FBI has embarked on an educational campaign to inform the American public about the risks when using platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google, according to Patel.

“There’s a decent chance that an adversary is looking to co-opt you as a spy or conduct espionage activities, where there’s a decent chance that they’re looking to defraud you or steal your money, or just steal your data,” Patel said.

In June, the FBI and partner agencies from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance released a bulletin warning that China’s military intelligence services were aggressively using fake recruiters and consulting firms on platforms including LinkedIn, Indeed, and Upwork to target people with access to sensitive information.

“Applicants beware!” the FBI wrote in an X post announcing the bulletin, saying people with U.S. government clearances are being targeted. “The threat is real. Verify before you trust.”