Young, Colleagues Lead Letter Supporting Offensive Cyber Capabilities

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Todd Young (R-Ind.) joined 11 of his Senate Republican colleagues in sending a letter to President Donald J. Trump to express the strong support among Senate Republicans for the President’s peace through strength agenda and to highlight the need for increased U.S. offensive cyber capabilities to reestablish deterrence against China.

The letter outlines a series of China-backed cyber attacks and espionage campaigns during the Biden administration that saw Chinese actors burrow into critical infrastructure systems, spy on millions of Americans—including President Trump himself—through compromised U.S. telecommunications providers, and hack into sensitive U.S. Government systems.

“Mr. President, it is clear that deterrence must be restored in the cyber domain. It is unacceptable for China and our other enemies to conduct such brazen cyber-attacks against our government and the American people. We urge you to take strong, decisive action to secure America’s critical networks from PRC threats. We stand ready to support you and your administration in imposing higher costs on adversaries who attack our country in the cyber domain, improving our cyber defenses, and increasing U.S. offensive capabilities to conduct cyber operations,” the senators wrote.

In addition to Senator Young, U.S. Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R-W. Va.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), and Jim Justice (R-W.Va.) also signed the letter.

Full text of the letter can be found here and below:

Dear President Trump,

Congratulations on your recent inauguration as the 47th President of the United States and the historic start to your second term. We look forward to working with you in enacting your peace through strength agenda and restoring American national security.

Over the past four years, our adversaries, led by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), have launched numerous, brazen attacks in the cyber domain against the U.S. Government and the American people with near impunity, due to the weakness of the Biden Administration. Most recently, Chinese state-sponsored cyber actors hacked into the U.S. Department of the Treasury during the last week of the Biden presidency, reportedly compromising the office of former Secretary Janet Yellen as well as the sensitive Office of Foreign Assets Control.

This attack against U.S. Government systems came shortly after the American people learned of the alarming Salt Typhoon espionage operation, in which China-linked actors infiltrated several U.S. telecommunications companies with free rein to geolocate, collect data on, and record phone calls of millions of Americans. As you well know, these hackers also targeted high profile American political leaders, including you and Vice President Vance. We also have concerns that this attack involved systems used for compliance with Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requirements. Simply put, this operation alone is a stunning and unacceptable act of cyber espionage. Yet once again, the Biden Administration failed to respond.

Those are just the most recent attacks—the last four years have also seen China breach systems and email accounts at both the Department of Commerce and the Department of State. Alarmingly, multiple U.S. Government agencies have also assessed that PRC state-sponsored cyber actors prepositioned themselves within critical infrastructure networks with the intent to conduct “disruptive or destructive cyberattacks against U.S. critical infrastructure in the event of a major crisis or conflict.”

All of these attacks were undertaken with no forceful response by the Biden administration. Some officials from the former administration made last-ditch efforts to counter the narrative that the Biden administration failed to respond to some of the worst cyber-attacks in our nation’s history. The American people, however, are not fooled by the last-minute news that the “Biden [administration] quietly hit back” against our adversaries’ attacks. We possess the most powerful offensive cyber systems in the world, and when an adversary attacks our people, government, and critical infrastructure, there must be an appropriate response.

Mr. President, it is clear that deterrence must be restored in the cyber domain. It is unacceptable for China and our other enemies to conduct such brazen cyber-attacks against our government and the American people. We urge you to take strong, decisive action to secure America’s critical networks from PRC threats. We stand ready to support you and your administration in imposing higher costs on adversaries who attack our country in the cyber domain, improving our cyber defenses, and increasing U.S. offensive capabilities to conduct cyber operations.

Thank you for your service to our country, and we look forward to working together in support of our national security.

Sincerely,