Subcommittee Ranking Member Crockett’s Opening Statement at Subcommittee Hearing on Trump’s Disregard for America’s Cybersecurity
Washington, D.C. (January 21, 2026)—Today, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Oversight, delivered opening remarks at a subcommittee hearing on foreign threats to U.S. infrastructure, making clear that while Republicans talk about national security, Trump has dismantled the agencies that protect us and cozied up to the adversaries we should be defending against.
Below are Ranking Member Crockett’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, at today’s hearing.
WATCH Ranking Member Crockett’s opening statement.
Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett
Subcommittee on Oversight
“Embedded Threats: Foreign Ownership, Hidden Hardware, and Licensing Failures in America’s Transportation Systems”
January 21, 2026
Thank you, Chairman Van Drew, and thank you to the witnesses for appearing today to discuss threats to our transportation systems. This is a serious national security issue, and I appreciate the opportunity to discuss how our foreign adversaries target American critical infrastructure to threaten our national security.
Just last fall, the Federal Highway Administration warned that cellular radios had been found inside foreign-manufactured inverters and batteries for the signs, traffic cameras, weather stations, and vehicle chargers that line our highways. These communication devices could be secretly collecting individuals’ transportation data, could be used to hack into government systems, and could even be used to cause simultaneous outages.
Infiltration of our supply chains is just one vulnerability our adversaries can exploit. We’ve seen over and over adversaries target our critical infrastructure with cyber espionage and cyber attacks.
Unfortunately, from sending the names of CIA operatives over email to including a journalist in a Signal group chat discussing war plans, President Trump’s Administration has shown a blatant disregard for our cybersecurity. The President has gutted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency—our core civilian cyber defense agency. He also fired the head of U.S. Cyber Command, DHS’s Cyber Safety Review Board which was investigating Salt Typhoon, and cybersecurity professionals at the NSA and NIST.
DHS terminated the Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council, a key advisory group that provided a protected forum for private industry and federal agencies to share information and craft cybersecurity plans to protect critical infrastructure.
Experts repeatedly emphasize that public-private partnership is necessary to protect the cybersecurity of our critical infrastructure. But the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, which provided the statutory underpinning for our public-private cyber threat intelligence ecosystem, expired last fall, and the Republican-run Congress has still not reauthorized it.
But it doesn’t end there. President Trump’s Administration has also disbanded key operations targeting foreign malign influence. Attorney General Pam Bondi dissolved the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard dismantled the Intelligence Community’s Foreign Malign Influence Center. After related offices at the State Department, DHS, and DOJ have been closed, it now appears that there is no longer any federal body dedicated to tracking and analyzing foreign state efforts to interfere in American society. Meanwhile, the President seems to get more friendly with the heads of authoritarian, adversarial nations every day.
This dismantling of the federal government’s cybersecurity and national security resources and the continued politicization of our federal agencies has left state and private officials reluctant to trust and share information with the U.S. government. This threatens the security of all our critical infrastructure, from our health care to our elections to our transportation systems.
It is vital that we address the ways our foreign adversaries target our key critical infrastructure sectors—whether through dominating our supply chains, exploiting cyber vulnerabilities, or buying access to trade secrets through investment. But in my opinion, the largest threat to our national security and critical infrastructure is not undocumented immigration or foreign investment, but the threat embedded at the highest level of our government.
Thank you, and I yield back.