Nebraska Republican Rep. Don Bacon said on Tuesday that the FBI informed him that operatives from the Chinese Communist Party hacked his emails.
Bacon’s announcement comes after it was previously reported that suspected Chinese hackers gained access to communications from officials at the State Department and the Commerce Department.
“I thank the FBI for notifying me that the CCP hacked into my personal and campaign emails from May 15th to June 16th of this year. The CCP hackers utilized a vulnerability in the Microsoft software, and this was not due to ‘user error,’” Bacon said on X.
“Thus, there were other victims in this cyber operation. The Communist government in China are not our friends and are very active in conducting cyber espionage. I’ll work overtime to ensure Taiwan gets every $ of the $19B in weapons backlog they’ve ordered, and more,” he added.
Bacon, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, has consistently pushed for more U.S. military equipment to be sold to Taiwan. He said the supplies are necessary for Taiwan to “deter” any action from China.
News of the hacking of the federal agencies, which officials first discovered in June, was first made public in July.
“Microsoft notified the department of a compromise to Microsoft’s Office 365 system, and the department took immediate action to respond,” a spokesman for the Commerce Department said last month. “We are monitoring our systems and will respond promptly should any further activity be detected.”
The communications of U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burn and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Daniel Kritenbrink were also breached due to the hacking.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP
In March, the White House put out a framework discussing the need for better cybersecurity, warning that China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran were all working to increase their cyber capabilities.
According to the framework, China represents “the broadest, most active, and most persistent threat to both government and private sector networks and is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do so.”