Judicial Watch Sues Director of National Intelligence for Records on China Corruption Report

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for records of its preparation of a congressionally mandated report on the wealth and corrupt activities of the Chinese Communist Party (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (No. 1:26-cv-00199)).

Judicial Watch sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Director of National Intelligence failed to respond to a March 7, 2025, FOIA request for:

• All records relied upon during ODNI’s preparation of its report regarding the wealth and corrupt activities of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). For purposes of clarification, the report was mandated by Sec. 6501 of the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 (P.L. 117-263).

• All communications between ODNI personnel involved in the preparation of the report and any official or employee of the Department of State regarding the report, or its submission to Congress.

• All communications between ODNI personnel involved in the preparation of the report and the Executive Office of the President regarding the report, or its submission to Congress.

The 2022 legislation mandating the report gave a deadline of December 2023.

In June 2024 China was reported to have lobbied strongly against the report’s release. The report was not delivered until March 2025 – after Donald Trump had become president and a new director of national intelligence was in place.

The seven-page report, titled “Wealth and Corrupt Activities of the Leadership of the Chinese Communist Party,” states: 

Corruption is an endemic feature of and challenge for China, enabled by a political system with power highly centralized in the hands of the CCP, a CCP-centric concept of the rule of law, a lack of independent checks on public officials, and limited transparency.

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Corruption within China is primarily due to structural features that centralize power, eschew independent checks or accountability—especially at the provincial level—and produce perverse incentives for political advancement and financial enrichment.

“There is heavy resistance to transparency when it comes to what the Deep State knows about the Chinese Communist Party,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The long delay of this intelligence report on China’s corruption and systemic graft reflects poorly on the Biden-era intelligence community.”

Judicial Watch has reported extensively on China’s influence in the United States.

In March 2025, Judicial Watch sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for records regarding Minnesota governor and 2024 Democrat vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s connections to the Chinese Communist Party.

In November 2025, Judicial Watch sued the U.S. Department of Education for records on the University of Michigan’s connections to China, including related communications with the U.S. Department of Justice.

In July 2025, Judicial Watch received records from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security about Gov. Tim Walz’s connections to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). DHS and the FBI counter-intelligence investigation into Walz’s CCP connections determined that “China [was] happy” with Walz being selected as Kamala Harris’s running mate on the 2024 Democratic presidential ticket. Walz’s connections to the CCP were extensive and a concern to the intelligence community, according to the documents produced.

In July 2024, Judicial Watch sued the U.S. Department of Treasury for records of communication between the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regarding the purchase of U.S. farmland by foreign entities, including China and other foreign powers.

Judicial Watch’s investigations and FOIA lawsuits uncovered much is publicly known about Covid-19’s connections with China, including FBI records released in April 2024 referencing an April 2020 email exchange with several officials in the bureau’s Newark Field Office referring to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China as including “gain-of-function research” which “would leave no signature of purposeful human manipulation.”

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