The chairman of the new House panel on countering the Chinese Communist Party has blasted the FBI's apparently late response to the establishment of a Chinese police station in New York City.

In a letter to FBI director Christopher Wray this morning, Chairman Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.) expressed concern that "the illegal operation of PRC law enforcement in the U.S. is part of the CCP's broader efforts to undermine American security and extend its techno-totalitarian reach beyond the PRC's borders."

Gallagher added that while he welcomes the news that the FBI reportedly raided the secret Chinese government outpost in Lower Manhattan last fall, he was concerned that there have been additional stations identified in the U.S. "I am also troubled by the fact that the FBI appears to have been late to the game – acting in response to open-source information only after it was publicized by Safeguard Defenders and concerns were raised by Members of Congress," he wrote.

The human-rights watchdog Safeguard Defenders revealed the existence of dozens of Chinese government-run police stations across the world — including one at a location in Lower Manhattan — in a September 2022 report. While the Chinese authorities claimed that the stations were set up by Chinese provincial and municipal security bureaus to assist Chinese nationals with renewing their passports and completing other administrative tasks, several of the facilities are involved in the Chinese regime's efforts to extrajudicially force the return of fugitives allegedly implicated in fraud schemes, according to Safeguard Defenders. The stations are also involved in espionage and propaganda campaigns, state-media articles analyzed in the report suggested.

The New York station was operated by the Public Security Bureau of the city of Fuzhou, and housed in the office of the America ChangLe Association, a community "townsmen" group for Chinese immigrants named after one of the city's districts. The revelation of its existence touched off an inquiry by House Republicans. Two groups of lawmakers, each led by Gallagher, Jim Banks (R., Ind.), and Mike Waltz (R., Fla.), wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Attorney General Merrick Garland last October asking about the circumstances under which the police station opened, the possibility that it is involved in harassment campaigns, and the tax-exempt status of the America ChangLe Association.

Wray first addressed the matter publicly during a hearing the following month, in response to questions from Senator Rick Scott (R., Fla.). The FBI director roundly condemned the Chinese government's move to open a police station in New York as "outrageous," warned the Chinese against "exporting their repression," and strongly suggested that there was an ongoing investigation into the matter.

Since Wray's testimony, the agency has maintained a disciplined silence about the police station — but the New York Times has reported that FBI counterintelligence agents raided the office which housed the Chinese government law-enforcement outpost sometime last fall, seizing documents as part of a criminal investigation by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn. The involvement of those prosecutors was noteworthy, because the station is located beyond their office's jurisdiction.

For its part, the State Department's first response to the House members' letters came on January 11, when Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs Naz Durakoglu said that the department had "carefully reviewed the Safeguard Defenders reports" about the stations. Durakoglu added that State had never authorized the Chinese government to establish any such stations. Reflecting State's increased attention to the matter, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman mentioned the overseas police stations in a speech to the Brookings Institution last week.

One key player throughout all of this has been the America ChangLe Association. While the mysterious group's stated purpose is to support immigrants from Fujian province, it is reported to have extensive ties to the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department — a key driver of the CCP's political-influence operations. That's typical of organizations supporting specific sectors of the mainland-Chinese diaspora in the U.S., Chinese human-rights lawyer Teng Biao told National Review this week. "I don't think there are independent [townsmen] organizations," except for those run by Taiwanese groups, he said.

When I visited the Association's office on January 19, there were four people present, all of whom either denied knowing about the police station and the FBI raid or claimed not to speak English. Eleven days later, however, the State Department told National Review in a statement that the FBI had confirmed the station had closed, suggesting that the office was shuttered in late January. Durakoglu's January 11 letter had made no mention of the closure, which suggests that it happened after that date. But State wouldn't offer additional information and the FBI declined to comment.

The FBI also didn't respond to a request for comment on Gallagher's letter this morning. The letter asked a series of questions, including whether the FBI knew about the New York station before the Safeguard Defenders report and if the FBI knows about other stations in the U.S. Safeguard Defenders has identified three more of such stations, while Newsweek has reported that there are several others.

Gallagher's letter to Wray comes amid a broader effort to bring attention to the Chinese police station's existence. He plans to join Representatives Ritchie Torres (D., N.Y.) and Neal Dunn (R., Fla.), in addition to Chinese dissidents and human-rights advocates, for a press conference tomorrow morning in front of the building that housed the facility.