Fox News Story Prompts Grassley Inquiry to Homeland

A Fox News story has prompted the powerful chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee to seek more information on federal investigations into the Rosslyn, Va.-based University of Management and Technology.

"According to Fox News, Defense Secretary James Mattis has also voiced concerns with the situation. Allegedly, Secretary Mattis said schools like UMT are attractive to the Chinese military because it could allow access to sensitive technology and insight into our capabilities," said chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) in a letter to Department of Homeland Security secretary John Kelly. 

The letter includes almost a half dozen citations to Fox News' February report: "Fox News Investigation: DOD-Funded School at Center of Federal Probes Over Suspected Chinese Military Ties," and reporters Catherine Herridge, Pamela K. Browne and Cyd Upson

Grassley is concerned, among other things, that thousands of records of service members enrolled at the school could be compromised. "Questions have been raised as to whether the UMT personnel in the Beijing office remotely accessed and compromised the personal and military histories of U.S. service members from China."

(Photo via John Taylor's Flickr. Image taken on June 15, 2017 and used per Creative Commons 2.0 license. The photo was cropped to fit 9x16 aspect ratio.)

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.