China, in his words · 2016 campaign · № 39
Said China hacked 22 million accounts because the U.S. has 'no defense'
“Take a look at what's happened. You don't report it the same way; 22 million accounts were hacked in this country by China. And that's because we have no defense. That's because we're run by people that don't know what they're doing.”
- Said
- , President-elect's news conference, Trump Tower, New York
- Subject
- cyber hacking
- Threat
- Military threat
- Topic
- Foreign policy
- Era
- 2016 campaign
What the record showed
Later in the same news conference he said China had 'taken total advantage of us economically' and in the South China Sea 'by building their massive fortress.' In February 2020 his Justice Department charged four members of China's military with the 2017 breach of Equifax, which exposed data on about 145 million Americans. Announcing the charges, Attorney General William Barr cited China's 'voracious appetite for the personal data of Americans,' including the theft of personnel records from the Office of Personnel Management.