An FBI agent, deeply engrossed in probing the connections among a Chinese data center, an American cloud firm, and the Department of War, found himself puzzled by an unexpected email.

His assignment was abruptly changed.

Instead of continuing his investigation into what he believed to be a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) operation, the agent disclosed to the Daily Mail that he was suddenly redirected from the case. His new role involved a ‘security support rotation,’ patrolling the streets alongside DC police officers.

“No explanation was given, not even a hint about who might take over my case files. Was this temporary or indefinite? It turned out to last for weeks,” the agent recounted.

As a member of the FBI’s DC China Counter Intelligence Program, the agent was told the reassignment was justified as a focus on ‘homeland threats.’ However, he questioned the relevance, doubting how his new duties in Washington, DC, were aiding in countering threats from China.

And this agent isn’t the only one who faced this fate.

Sources tell the Daily Mail that at least a few dozen other agents were pulled from their cases involving the CCP earlier this year when President Donald Trump decided it was more important for the FBI to help stymie street crime in the nation’s capital than weed-out spies in the US working for the CCP.

Two FBI agents confirmed that this happened but were unwilling to speak on the record.

Government staff investigating China allege the Trump administration is’slow-rolling’ its promised crackdown on the Chinese Communist Party because they allege the president wants to keep a good relationship with Chinese leader Xi Jinping (right)

FBI agents were frustrated when they were pulled from their investigations earlier this year to patrol the streets of Washington, DC in Trump’s crime crackdown, agents and sources familiar told the Daily Mail

Meanwhile, multiple insiders detail a growing frustration on Capitol Hill and within federal agencies over Trump’s more accommodating approach to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The consensus: The Trump administration is intentionally ‘slow-rolling’ the crackdown on Chinese espionage because the president wants to be friends with Xi.

The reassignment of handfuls of agents from their China cases and the reduction in workforce at the federal government are all ways these sources believe the administration is trying to impede any progress on addressing CCP crime. 

‘What I’m hearing is that the administration doesn’t want to rock the boat with China,’ said national security policy adviser LJ Eads. ‘Trump wants to get closer with our enemies and change who our enemies are… change that landscape to befriend those adversaries.’

A person familiar with the House Select Committee on the CCP speculated that there are a number of Trump allies who are ‘hoping to do a lot of business with China,’ and who want the president to keep things friendly. 

This includes, they said, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. With 20+ years of hedge fund work, the millionaire Trump official divested from groups with holdings in Chinese markets when he was nominated for role with the administration in late 2024.

A White House official told the Daily Mail, ‘I don’t think anyone believes we haven’t been adequately tough on China, especially if you look at trade policy.’

But criminal investigations are an entirely different matter and threat level.  

Eads, who advises multiple government agencies and Congress on national security policy, also claims investigations the Justice Department are conducting into Chinese crimes amounts to little more than dental office X-ray fraud and do little deter CCP espionage in the US. 

A Justice Department spokesperson called these claims ‘flat-wrong’ and told the Daily Mail those making them haven’t ‘bothered to review the cases and is simply trying to advance an agenda.’ 

They also provided links to a list of two dozen cases proving the DOJ has taken action against those involved in drug and firearms trafficking, money laundering, hacking and harassment, to name a few. 

‘The Department is dedicated to rooting out threats to our national security, frauds targeting American investors and markets, and those posed by narcotics traffickers and their illicit finance networks, regardless of where those threats originate,’ a spokesperson told the Daily Mail. 

‘However, as demonstrated by the cases we have provided to you, the Department has had particular success in countering schemes involving China or Chinese nationals in all three of those areas.’

FBI agents were among the federal forces tasked with assisting DC police in patrolling streets earlier this year when Trump prioritized crackdown on violent crime in the city

Some FBI agents were frustrated earlier this year when they had to side-line their China investigations into, for example, Chinese espionage at universities, to shift their activity to policing DC streets.

They were investigating serious cyber and surveillance crime, the source claims, but then were assigned to ‘walk streets and make sure homeless people don’t get in fights.’ 

‘It does something to morale,’ they added, saying that federal agents are actively looking elsewhere for jobs where they could actually investigate espionage – many times in the AI space.

One federal government source says officials at the National Security Council are aware investigations into CCP criminal activity in the US are falling by the wayside, but they are not pushing back because they are scared of losing their jobs.

‘They’re just trying to survive at the NSC,’ an intelligence analyst told the Daily Mail.

In April, about 20-25 NSC staff were fired after far-right activist Laura Loomer’s met with Trump in the Oval Office and flagged employees as disloyal. Additional firings happened following the ‘Signalgate’ scandal after a chat was shared with a journalist on Yemen strikes. 

Then in May there was an abrupt Friday-afternoon firing that gave 100-200 staff – or about half of the remaining team at NSC – 30 minutes to clear their desks. It was described by officials as a ‘gutting of the deep state.’ 

LJ Ead, a former military cyber and signals intelligence officer who now advises the Department of War, the NSC and the congressional Select Committee on the CCP, told the Daily Mail that officials across these agencies are so ‘siloed’ on China that no progress is being made in cracking down on actual crimes carried out by the CCP on US soil.

Chairman John Moolnaar (left) with the Select Committee on the CCP has voiced his annoyance over the administration’s more ‘dovish’ approach to China 

The source familiar with FBI agents’ sentiments called China a ‘necessary evil’ that the US needs to learn to work with rather than combat at every step.

And the person close with the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party says that Chairman John Moolnaar is being ‘kept in the dark’ on movements Trump is making when it comes to China. 

Specifically, the Republican congressman didn’t know the details of the deal Trump struck with the CCP regarding sale of the video social media app TikTok.

And it’s no secret that Moolnaar has been frustrated with how the administration has handled China – arguing they should be more hawkish so the US can be more competitive with the other world superpower.

‘Two things can be true at once,’ a White House official told the Daily Mail when reached about the criticism that the crackdown has been on economic and civil cases rather than on cyber and espionage crimes. 

‘You can have policies that achieve all of the goals that the President was elected to implement, by reassuring manufacturing, taking on unfair trading practices, while simultaneously getting better deals for the country,’ they added.

‘And the president’s been able to do both of those things.’