AG Barr: China is in a 'full-court blitzkrieg' against the US — 'and we are focused on it'

U.S. Attorney General William Barr believes China — not Russia — is America's biggest geopolitical threat and claimed Wednesday that China is currently "engaged in a full-court blitzkrieg" against the U.S.

In an interview with Fox News' Laura Ingraham, Barr spoke plainly about the nature of China's aggressive actions against the U.S., which he says includes wide-scale technology theft and concerted efforts to influence elections.

"This virus originated in China, we still don't have all the data, we still don't really know about patient zero in China," Ingraham said. "A lot of that data is being withheld still from the United States, and top medical people are saying that. What about the Justice Department getting involved more, I guess obviously, to the American people in this battle against the ongoing propaganda machine of China in the United States at our universities, in businesses — hey, in the White House Press Room the other day."

"Yes, the Department is heavily engaged in that. In fact, that's one of our highest priorities in the counterintelligence realm, counterespionage realm, and protection of trade secrets is our activity's directed to defend against the Chinese," Barr said in response.

"The Chinese are engaged in a full-court blitzkrieg of stealing American technology, trying to influence our political system, trying to steal secrets at our research universities and so forth — and we are focused on it," the attorney general asserted. "We have something we call the China Initiative. We've brought a lot of indictments, but it's something that we also have to expose by letting the business community understand exactly the nature of the threat."

Ingraham also asked Barr who he sees as the greatest threat to the American election process — China or Russia.

"In my opinion it's China," Barr responded. "And not just to the election process, but I think across the board there's simply no comparison. China is a very serious threat to the United States geopolitically, economically, militarily, and a threat to the integrity of our institutions given their ability to influence things."

China, long-considered an American adversary, has come under intensified scrutiny since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, which originated in Wuhan, China, late last year.

By all accounts, the communist government in China has been less than forthcoming about the origins and the nature of the global pandemic that has now infected nearly 1.5 million and killed nearly 90,000 people worldwide.