Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., a member of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, told Newsmax on Wednesday the committee's recent hearing revealed the CCP might pose a greater danger to the U.S. than the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Testifying at Tuesday night's hearing were retired Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, former national security adviser under former President Donald Trump; Matthew Pottinger, deputy national security adviser under Trump; Tong Yi, a Chinese human rights advocate; and Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.
"Remarkable facts [were] brought forth that the Chinese Communist Party is a bigger threat to America than even the Soviet Union was, and you don't need to take my word for it," Johnson told "National Report." "We had Gen. McMaster say that; we had Matt Pottinger say that. To a remarkably bipartisan degree, the members of that committee made it clear that the Chinese Communist Party is a serious threat to freedom and security."
The committee hearing also addressed social media platform TikTok's ties to the CCP. Pottinger testified that the platform's controlling company, ByteDance, under the thumb of the CCP, has used the app to spy on U.S. journalists to identify and retaliate against their sources and that it's one "small example of the universe of potential abuse that would be in the offing."
"American children should not be on TikTok," Johnson warned. "This is Chinese spyware. It is Chinese malware. No Americans should be on TikTok. One of the things we heard last night was the extent to which the CCP has used data from TikTok to surveil Americans, including American journalists.
"They were tracking their locations. They were trying to figure out who their sources were so that they could punish the families of those sources who still lived in China.
"TikTok is a mess. It's a disaster. Nobody should have it on their phones. Full stop."
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