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Before becoming CIA Director, William Burns served as director of a major think tank in Washington DC. While this is public information, a Daily Caller investigation revealed that he employed covert members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Joe Biden announced Burns’ nomination in January 2021, which was ratified in March by the Senate Intelligence Committee unanimously and later confirmed by the full upper chamber.
A career diplomat, Burns directed the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from February 2015 to November 2021, which is an international relations-oriented think tank based in both DC and Beijing. CIA director worked with at least 20 members of the Chinese Communist Party.
CIA director worked with at least 20 members of the Chinese Communist Party
According to the Daily Caller, during that period, Burns worked with 20 undercover CCP members. The Caller discovered the Communist roots of these employees after analyzing hundreds of Chinese-language Communist Party branch records and personnel profiles from more than a dozen organizations linked to the Communist Party.
This discovery worried many national security experts, considering that CCP members take an oath in which they pledge to “fight for communism” and to “sacrifice everything for the party and the people.”
One of them was Steve Yates, who was deputy national security advisor to the vice president, advisor to Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign as senior Asia advisor, and part of Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign team as national security advisor.
“It’s pretty much a fatal cul-de-sac that [Burns] finds himself in. Either he appears to have allowed experts linked from a hostile power to affiliate with an organization boasting many former and future U.S. appointees or he didn’t know or bother to check,” Yates told the Caller.
“If you can’t track who was in your think tank, running a much larger intelligence agency is the wrong line of work. (…) “If any Communist Party members have easy access to any sensitive information whatsoever, they’re certain to get a visit from Chinese intelligence,” he added.
According to the investigation, most of the PCC members joined before Burns’ arrival, although he employed at least four during his time there.
For Brandon Weichert, a national security expert, and consultant to the U.S. Air Force, the case is extremely serious. “If they can’t be trusted in that position to employ the right people who aren’t under the sway of foreign governments, how the hell can we expect them not to do the same thing when they’re in an even more important position of authority?” he told the Caller.
William Burns on China
Prior to taking office, the current CIA director spoke about the threat the Asian giant poses to the United States. “I think the evolutions of Xi Jinping’s China over the last six or seven years has been a very sharp wake-up call. The kind of aggressive, undisguised ambition and assertiveness I think has made very clear the nature of the adversary and the rival that we face today,” he said in February 2021.
“We have to buckle up for the long haul in competition with China. This is not like the competition with the Soviet Union in the Cold War, which was primarily in security and ideological terms. This is an adversary that is extraordinarily ambitious in technology and capable in economic terms as well,” he concluded at the time.
Joaquín Núñez es licenciado en comunicación periodística por la Universidad Católica Argentina. Se especializa en el escenario internacional y en la política nacional norteamericana. Confeso hincha de Racing Club de Avellaneda. Contacto: [email protected] // Joaquín Núñez has a degree in journalistic communication from the Universidad Católica Argentina. He specializes in the international scene and national American politics. Confessed fan of Racing Club of Avellaneda. Contact: [email protected]